


baby, it will bury us

by diasterisms



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Works In A Culture Of Toxic Masculinity That Perpetuates Sexist Language And Sexual Harrassment, But He Gets Better, Daddy Kink, Dom/sub, Domming Through My Tears: A Memoir By Amateur Sugar Daddy Ben Solo, Excessive Drinking And Smoking, F/M, He’s Not An Active Participant But He Sort Of Lets It Slide At First, I’m A Trash Can Not A Trash Can’t, Mentions Of Other People’s Infidelity (Not Ben & Rey), Mentions Of Parental Neglect And Emotional Abuse (Rey’s Father Sucks), Mentions Of Past Relationships That Have Soured Ben To Love (TM), Older Man/Younger Woman, Sugar Daddy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23618320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diasterisms/pseuds/diasterisms
Summary: A cynical inner voice told him thatof courseshe was flirting; he was wearing an Italian suit and a watch that cost three hundred thousand dollars, give or take. But her profile was silhouetted against the Eiffel Tower and Jacques Brel was playing on the speakers, and so his heart skipped a beat.Fucking Paris.Or: One summer night in the City of Love, a drunken wager is turned on its head and Ben Solo makes the biggest mistake of his life.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1341
Kudos: 3880





	1. l'été, part i

**Author's Note:**

> Quarantine really got me going through it so here's a fic based on [this prompt](https://twitter.com/reylo_prompts/status/1238307076973223936): "Ben falls in love with his sugar baby Rey and freaks out. He decides to break up the relationship and pretends he's now bankrupt, assuming she only wants his money. Rey tells him that she's saved enough for two and she'll support him through anything."
> 
> Please mind the tags. Hux and the other men that Ben associates with are really gross, especially in this first chapter. If you do decide to read on, feedback would be much appreciated! ❤️

He didn't mean to, which, ironically enough, was how these things were usually said to go. Men decades older and just as wealthy as he was swore on their souls that they hadn't meant to, handing diamond-studded Cartier apologies to their wives or last-ditch counterarguments to their wives' lawyers. _The girl seduced me— I didn't know what I was doing— it was entrapment—_

In Ben Solo's case, he _truly_ hadn't meant to, and neither had the cocktail waitress done anything that could be considered seduction by any stretch.

It was just that Armitage Hux was an asshole.

Alone, Hux was tolerable— not _harmless,_ per se, but ineffectual. In a group of jaded businessmen winding down on Scotch and cigars at an exclusive high-rise lounge along the Champs-Élysées, Hux's assholery spread like a miasma, thicker than the Cohiba smoke and infecting everyone within a five-foot radius.

Ben was not exempt, although he liked to think that, in these conditions, _his_ assholery was a form of self-defense. As far as excuses went, this one was piss-poor, but he'd learned a long time ago to take what he could get.

Tonight, what Hux apparently thought Ben needed to get was _laid._

There was something exceedingly tacky about inebriating on Laphroaig Single Malt. Leia Organa would be raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow at Ben if she could see him now. But the way he looked at it, he didn't have much of a choice— Alastair Snoke had made it clear at the last board meeting that, as the newly instated CEO of the First Order's Paris division, Ben needed to be more personable with the clients. Étienne Venamis and Lucas Guile weren't clients _yet,_ which meant it was all the more imperative for Ben to play his cards right.

Venamis was the younger of the two Frenchmen, sallow and skinny with a fashionable undercut and eyes the color of a frozen sky. He was the one who cracked the first remark about their waitress' perky ass when she walked away after taking their order, and Guile— portly, gray-haired, reeking of vetiver and peppermint— promptly joined in.

Hux polished off his first glass and did the same. It was all part of the game, of course— keep prospective clients happy and walk away at the end of the night with a lucrative contract all but in the bag. Hux, however, had a way of escalating any given situation, knowing just what strings to pull to bring out the worst in anyone and incite even the most mellow of jerks to a fever pitch. It was his greatest talent, which was probably why Snoke had made him Ben's second-in-command.

Aside from the occasional half-hearted nod or humorless dry chuckle, Ben couldn't bring himself to join in the other men's lewd talk. For one thing, the cocktail waitress looked awfully young— she couldn't have been a day older than twenty— and, for another, it was just _disgusting._ He had half a mind to call the whole evening off and refuse to deal with Venamis and Guile any further, but it was wishful thinking at best. Ben had been working towards his current position for almost a decade; when Snoke finally gave him the opportunity, he had uprooted basically his entire life to move to France. He couldn't afford to make a mistake now.

The waitress' name was Rey. She'd introduced herself with a cheerful smile that was wearing thinner and thinner with each hour that passed. Venamis and Guile carried the conversation in English— more for Ben's benefit than that of Hux, who was fluent in French— and perhaps this, along with the Laphroaig, made them bolder in their comments. Even if Rey didn't speak English, though, the men's suggestive tones and not so furtive leers surely comprised a universal language. It didn't help that they were hardly bothering to lower their voices.

"Sweet young thing," Guile sighed, clapping one meaty hand over his heart as Rey went to fetch another box of cigars at his behest. "If I didn't already have two little birds on the side..."

"The way I see it, there's nothing stopping you, Monsieur Guile." Hux chortled in a way that made Ben kind of want to bash his teeth in. "She would be a fine addition to your collection."

"If Lucas were to make anymore purchases, he'll be bankrupt before the year's out," Venamis countered with an irreverent smirk. "Particularly if this _meuf_ insists on a monthly installment plan like the other two. You should leave her to me, I've been thinking of breaking up with Aemele."

"Why so?" Guile asked his business partner.

"She's getting too clingy." Venamis made a face. "She wants me to leave my wife."

Hux and Guile burst into uproarious laughter, during which Ben sipped his drink in frosty silence. The wife in question was the sole heiress to an international resort chain— not the kind of woman a crafty entrepreneur of Venamis' ilk would willingly divorce, although her billions apparently didn't render her immune from being cheated on. Ben didn't know if he felt sorrier for her or for the unfortunate Aemele.

His refusal to participate in the merriment hadn't gone unnoticed. Guile turned to him with a mercenary glint in his beady, tar-hued eyes. "And as for yourself, Monsieur Solo? You have been in Paris three months now. Have you found any sparkling gems to wear around your neck?"

"I wouldn't bet on it," said Hux. "Ben is married to his work."

"But this can't be!" Venamis declared, droplets of Scotch sloshing out of his glass as he all but jumped from his leather armchair in mock dismay. "You _must_ have our pretty little waitress, then. I insist."

A sneer spread across Hux's pale, pointed face. Ben tensed up; it was the patented Hux sneer that had historically never led to anything good.

"Indeed," mused the redhead. "It is our solemn duty to help our fellow man. To give him a _push,_ as it were."

"Hux," Ben warned, but it was too late. Both Venamis and Guile were leaning forward eagerly— a pair of bespoke-suited sharks scenting blood in the water.

"What sort of _push_ are you suggesting?" asked Venamis.

"A wager." Hux rolled each crisp syllable off of his tongue with relish. "If Ben takes the cocktail waitress home tonight— you, gentlemen, will agree to another meeting, during which we shall discuss the finer details of a possible contract between Synchet Industries and First Order Global."

Ben sucked in a sharp breath. Enough was enough. "My associate seems to have proven quite incapable of holding his liquor," he snapped with a glare at the stonily unrepentant Hux. "He doesn't know what he's saying. If we could strive for a less improper topic of discussion—"

"Come on now, Solo!" Guile clapped him on the shoulder and Ben had to resist the urge to bat away the offending hand. "You're too young to be so serious. Take it from me. I rest on the— the _laurels_ of a gloriously wasted youth—"

_"This—"_ Venamis gestured emphatically at Guile— "is someone who can't hold his liquor. Two glasses and a half of Scotland's gift to the world and he thinks he's a poet. Monsieur Hux, however, strikes me as eminently sensible, and I should like to see where he's going with this." Venamis cocked his head at Hux. "Tell me, what happens if Monsieur Solo fails?"

Hux shrugged. "Then you'll be sitting here same time next week with Tarkin's firm, won't you?"

Venamis blinked, then grinned. "I do _so_ respect a gambling man."

Against his better judgment, Ben opened his mouth, fully prepared to tell Hux and the two Frenchmen to shove it, but at that precise moment the waitress— _Rey—_ came back, her black heels clicking on the glossy hardwood floor.

The interior of the lounge was dimly lit and hazy with smoke, but neither of those factors could mask how attractive she was. Given that his companions were talking about her like she was a piece of meat, a guilt-stricken Ben had been trying all night to refrain from dwelling on her physical assets; however, her beautiful face and slender figure turned out to be impossible to ignore when she was standing right next to his armchair as she presented the box of cigars to Guile. Her chestnut hair was pulled back in a tight bun, providing an unobstructed view of a smooth, high forehead, large hazel eyes, a delicate nose, chiseled cheekbones, and pink lips capped by what Ben was sure was the most sensual Cupid's bow in living memory. She wore a sleeveless, form-fitting red dress that showcased her toned arms and ended a scant few inches below the curve of a shapely derrière. Her legs, clad in sheer black stockings, went on for _miles._

In short, she was _exactly_ Ben's type, and that made him feel even worse.

Without saying a word, Rey unwrapped one of the cigars and sliced off the cap with a guillotine cutter— neatly, but with a touch more force than was actually warranted. She served Guile, struck a match, and held it beneath the cigar until he started drawing smoke. Then she turned to Ben, and as he peered up at her he noticed that her jaw was clenched and her eyes were bright with fury.

He couldn't blame her.

"None for me," he said as she glared at him like he was something she'd stepped on. Unsure how much English she knew, he punctuated the sentence with a shake of his head and an awkward wave of his palm. _"Merci,"_ he added, wondering if it would make her even madder that he'd butchered the accent.

"You do not care for the Esplendidos, Monsieur Solo?" Venamis asked as Rey stalked over to his and Hux's side of the table. "Personally, it's my favorite. Very vegetal, with lots of cedar and spice to keep it interesting."

"I believe he might be in the mood to puff on something more French," Hux drawled, eliciting snickers from Venamis and Guile.

The only thing Ben was in the mood for at that moment was for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. No, scratch that— to swallow him _and_ the other men whole, so that Rey would never have to be subjected to their presence ever again. He dearly hoped that the conversation was going over her head.

After serving Hux and Venamis their cigars, Rey snapped the box shut, then asked, "Can I get you gentlemen anything else?"

In icy, flawless, British-accented English.

Ben's heart lurched in his chest, threatening to bring the Laphroaig back up his throat. Venamis stared at Rey, jaw slack, while Guile choked on his newly lit Cohiba.

Hux's lips twitched. "Ah. A fellow expat."

Rey's hazel eyes flashed as she lifted her chin in defiance, and Ben didn't think he'd ever seen a more magnificent sight. "I'm not certain I like the idea of being your fellow _anything,"_ she spat.

Being the type of person who was prone to putting their foot in their mouth, Ben immediately recognized the expression of someone who was quickly realizing that they'd just done so. From the way Rey gave a slight gasp, it was obvious that she would have clapped a hand over her lips if she hadn't been holding hundreds of euros worth of cigars in their sleek lacquered case. A scarlet flush of anger was creeping over Hux's wintry features and his blue eyes were glittering dangerously, and Ben was familiar with _that_ look as well. It was the patented Armitage Hux promise that there would be hell to pay.

Beneath the surface of Rey's defiance, there lurked a desperation that Ben had seen too many times before, back in the days when he'd helped his mother and grandparents with their various charity programs. It wasn't too much of a stretch to assume that a young waitress living in one of the most expensive cities in the world couldn't afford to lose her job.

Ben acted without thinking, his reflexes greased by Scotch and a belated burst of chivalry. He rammed his knee into the underside of the table, lifting it briefly off the floor.

The open bottle of Laphroaig tipped over, spilling its contents all over Hux's Savile Row three-piece.

All throughout the lounge, heads turned towards the commotion as Hux leapt to his feet with a strangled cry, the front of his suit soaking wet. Venamis and Guile hurriedly righted the bottle and the empty glasses, asking Hux if he was okay while the latter kept on shrieking.

Ben took a generous swig of his drink, concealing a smug half-smile behind the Glencairn's crystal rim. "Sorry about that, Armitage." He set the glass down, levelly meeting the other man's virulent glare. "You may send the dry-cleaning bill to my assistant, if you like."

"I _will,"_ Hux barked. He whirled to face Rey, who had so far been observing the proceedings in stunned silence. "Well, what are you standing around for? Get me some paper towels!"

Rey collected herself. "Right away, sir."

As she bustled off, her eyes met Ben's for the most fleeting of moments. The sensation was akin to an electric shock. He sat up a little straighter, but she was already scurrying past him.

"And they had _better_ be four-ply!" Hux called after her peevishly.

🎀💎🎀

It wasn't Rey who came back with the paper towels. The new waitress' hair was so blonde it was almost silver, and she spoke in rapid French.

"Rey's gone on her break. Naylyn will be our server for the rest of the evening," Guile explained to Ben. The older man wagged his bushy eyebrows. "Are you heartbroken, monsieur?"

Ben ignored the question, supplying one of his own. "Will there still be a rest of the evening? If I know Armitage, he's itching to salvage his suit posthaste."

"Nice try, Solo," Hux muttered, blotting his jacket with the paper towels and lemon juice that Naylyn had brought over. "I see no reason for your clumsiness to impinge on this otherwise lovely Friday night."

Ben surreptitiously checked the gold-and-ebony Patek Philippe Grand Complications Celestial on his wrist, and he sighed. It was fifteen minutes past eleven, but Venamis and Guile showed no signs of flagging and Hux wasn't going to quit— stained Henry Poole and all— until the two Frenchmen had been suitably wooed. Ben felt as if the walls were closing in on him; the ripples of conversation throughout the lounge were too loud, the gleam of amber light on whiskey glasses too blinding.

He stood up. "I need some fresh air."

"Of course." Venamis gestured towards a door at the back of the lounge. "The balcony has a stunning view of the _tour,_ if you're not sick of it already."

"No one can get sick of the Eiffel Tower, Monsieur Venamis," Hux assured him. "It is a true marvel of engineering."

"I think it's a damn eyesore," Guile huffed. "You know de Maupassant, the writer? Every day he ate lunch in the restaurant at the base of the tower— precisely because it was one of the few places in Paris where he didn't have to look at it."

"He was a wise man," Hux said solemnly, attempting to correct his gaffe. "We would do well to learn from his example."

Shaking his head at Hux's antics, Ben headed out the door that Venamis had indicated. It was the middle of June and several of the lounge's customers were out on the balcony, enjoying the balmy summer air and the cigarettes that were banned inside. Ben fished a pack of Davidoff Classics and his trusty S.T. Dupont Slim 7 out of the inner pocket of his charcoal gray Ermenegildo Zegna suit and found a shadowy corner to light up in, away from the crowd.

He idly perused the city skyline as smoke filled his lungs. Paris at night was a web of differently colored lights beaming from high-rises and the streets below; the Eiffel Tower loomed over everything, bedecked in gold. Whatever Guy de Maupassant's opinions on the structure, it was an enduring symbol, its image carefully cultivated by centuries of literature and Hollywood and advertising to sear awe into the soul. Ben wasn't unmoved by the sight, but a less career-driven person would have perhaps found it tragic that gazing at the tower from a hotel roof deck was the most touristy thing he'd done since arriving in France three months ago.

"Have you got a light?" asked a familiar dulcet voice.

Rey had approached him unnoticed, holding one of those straw-thin cigarettes that a man would look like an idiot smoking. Her bare, willowy arms shone underneath the moonlight as Jacques Brel's _Ne me quitte pas_ wafted through the air from unseen speakers.

Ben couldn't actually form words at the moment, but he managed to do the polite thing and light Rey's cigarette for her after she'd put it to her mouth. The elegant curve of her cheek, fanned by sooty lashes, glowed in the Dupont's flame, and he could almost swear that he glimpsed the barest hint of freckles beneath her makeup.

Rey nodded her thanks and stepped back, flashing him a polite smile through a silvery puff of smoke. They stood quietly side by side while he tried and failed not to sneak glances at her. It wasn't just that she was gorgeous; she also made him _antsy,_ for reasons that it took him a while to figure out.

_Bazine,_ he finally realized. Rey reminded him of Bazine Netal— same slim figure, same brown hair, also British. He didn't know why it had taken him so long to make the connection, especially after conceding to himself that Rey was his type.

It had been a year since Bazine had called off their engagement, but Ben's stomach could still turn at the memory.

"You should pick your friends more carefully, monsieur," Rey commented in an offhand tone. "One of these days, one of you is going to say the wrong thing to the wrong woman and get kicked in the balls. Not that _they_ wouldn't deserve it."

Ben blinked at her. "Oh— no, they're not my friends. Hux and I work for the same company. The other two are— we're aiming to close a deal with them."

Rey shot him a withering look. "Is that why you were laughing at their jokes about me?"

He winced. "I apologize. Truly, I do."

"Hmm." She blew out another cloud of smoke. "I doubt I can bring myself to wait on your table again, but thank you for what you did in there, I guess."

"How can you be certain it wasn't an accident?" he couldn't resist countering.

She peered at him through her lashes. "You don't strike me as the kind of guy who's very clumsy."

Ben was suddenly glad for the darkness. Glad that it could hide the blush he felt suffusing his face, all the way to the tips of his ears. A cynical inner voice told him that _of course_ she was flirting; he was wearing an Italian suit and a watch that cost three hundred thousand dollars, give or take. But her profile was silhouetted against the Eiffel Tower and Jacques Brel was playing on the speakers, and so his heart skipped a beat.

Fucking Paris.

"How long have you been here?" Ben heard himself ask. "In France, I mean."

"I've been studying here for a couple of years now. My mother was French, but I grew up in the U.K."

Aside from noting that, _God,_ she was a _student—_ too, _too_ young for him— he also picked up on the use of the past tense and was wondering whether he should offer his condolences when she followed up with a question of her own. "How long are you here for?"

"A while," Ben replied. "My company has transferred me for the foreseeable future."

"And your company is?"

"First Order Global."

"Ooh, _fancy,"_ she teased, and it took all of his willpower to not blush again. "I temp in La Défense from time to time. Your building's wicked."

Ben privately thought that the French headquarters weren't as sleek as the main office in New York, but he held his peace. "It's all right."

Rey stubbed out the remnants of her cigarette on a nearby bin. "As you may have already surmised, I can't lose this job. So—" She nodded at him. "I'm grateful. Really."

Ben nodded back, thinking that their conversation was at an end, but then Rey grinned up at him, mischievous and beautiful against a backdrop of jeweled skyline.

"And I know _just_ how to repay you," she announced with glee. "But, first, I need to know your name."

🎀💎🎀

In hindsight, Ben shouldn't have been surprised that Rey had overheard his table's chatter in its entirety— or, at least, enough to catch the gist of it. His companions hadn't exactly been using their indoor voices.

Also in hindsight, he would blame the Laphroaig for making him agree to her mad scheme.

By the time he exited the hotel lobby with Venamis, Guile, and Hux, it was past midnight and they were all drunk to varying degrees. After his talk with Rey, Ben had imbibed more than he'd planned on, in a bid to gain some form of liquid courage for what lay ahead.

Her shift had ended thirty minutes ago. She was standing outside the hotel doors beneath one of the city's ubiquitous ornate lamp posts, a lightweight black cardigan draped over her shoulders and a huge, beat-up purse dangling from her arm.

"Mademoiselle! Are you looking for a ride home?" Venamis slurred out in English. "I would be happy to offer my _services—"_

Ben balled his hand into a fist, although somewhere in his Scotch-addled mind common sense warned that Snoke would be out for his blood if he punched the founder of Europe's hottest tech startup.

"I've got it covered," Rey informed Venamis acidly. She then turned to Ben, smiling at him like they shared a secret. Which they technically did. "Ready to go, Ben?"

_"What?"_ Venamis sputtered.

"What," Hux deadpanned.

Guile was too wasted to speak. He gaped at Ben and Rey like a fish out of water.

Right on schedule, a silver Aston Martin Rapide came roaring down the street and pulled to a stop in front of their little group. Dopheld Mitaka, Ben's chauffeur, hopped out and opened the passenger door with military precision.

Rey slipped her hand inside the crook of Ben's elbow. She smelled like apple and ginger, blended through with lily of the valley— a scent that pierced through his tipsy state. Even the innocent, feather-light pressure of her slender fingers seemed to burn holes into his sleeve.

Although it was for show, the smirk that Ben shot his drinking companions was genuine, if a little bit sloppy at the edges. He'd won the bet and they all knew it. "Hux will be in touch to set up another meeting," he told Venamis and Guile as he escorted Rey to his car. "Have a good night, gentlemen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [Darth Venamis](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Venamis).  
> [Darth Guile](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Guile).  
> [Aemele](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Aemele).  
> [Synchet Industries](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Synchet_Industries).  
> [Naylyn Bashan](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Naylyn_Bashan).  
> [Wilhuff Tarkin](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Wilhuff_Tarkin).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> [Ben's watch in this chapter](https://www.patek.com/en/collection/grand-complications/6102R-001).  
> I have Mylene (myabell0 on Twitter) to thank for introducing me to the slang term _meuf_ , which would basically be "chick" in English.  
> [Guy de Maupassant really hated the Eiffel Tower](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/20/priority-french-writer-ate-lunch-everyday-base-eiffel-tower-place-paris-not-see-2/).  
> ["Ne me quitte pas" by Jacques Brel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7zgNye6HTE).


	2. l'été, part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am quite pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome this new story has received! Thanks so much, guys, and special shout-out to benreyrosefaves on Twitter for helping me decide where to situate Rey's apartment and to incognitus-minimus for [the lovely moodboard](https://twitter.com/noaccounto/status/1251534389139341312?s=21)!
> 
> **Content warning for this chapter: Rey is a morbid heaux and will be discussing the fates of a handful of the thousands of men and women executed during France's Reign of Terror. Nothing too graphic but they _were_ guillotined, so please tread with caution if that makes you uneasy.**

Rey burst out laughing as the car peeled away from the sidewalk. It was real laughter, vibrant and unrestrained, and it rang with joy— such a far cry from the elegant, carefully modulated concessions to humor that Ben witnessed in his usual circles.

He wasn't sure if he liked it or if he found it as crass as so many of his peers would, but there could be no denying that the crassness was part of what made it so mesmerizing to watch. She was practically _howling._

"The looks on their faces!" Rey fished a box of tissues out of the overly large purse in her lap and dabbed at the tears of merriment that had sprung from the corners of her eyes. "Oh, that was amazing. The memory will keep me warm this winter." She grinned at Ben as she leaned back against the Aston Martin's leather seat. "I hope you'll overcharge them for— for whatever it is your company does."

It sounded sort of like a question, but he shook his head. "I don't think you'd care for me to get into it. My line of work is far from riveting." Bazine and his other exes had always zoned out when he talked about his job. _Women want the soul of a poet and the bank account of a CEO,_ Snoke had once derisively remarked. And that was fine, really, it wasn't like talking was the be-all and end-all of the kind of relationship that was most often pursued in Ben's world.

Which was why it came as such a surprise to him when Rey said, "No, I'm interested."

He stared at her, looking for signs that she was lying through her teeth and coming up empty, seeing only her wide hazel eyes and earnest features caught in flickering nets of light and shadow as they cruised down the quiet streets.

"First Order is a professional services network. We specialize in consulting, audit, risk advisory, and tax and legal assistance," Ben cautiously explained. "Synchet Industries is developing a line of luxury tablets and there's a pretty intense war going on as to who can help them get it off the ground."

"Luxury tablets," Rey echoed. "Like... fancy iPads? But iPads are _already_ fancy."

"The Syn-mulation—" Ben couldn't help but twitch as he said it— "boasts a sleeker design and more innovative features."

"Are they really going to call it _the Syn-mulation?"_

Her expression was so sad and horrified that the beginnings of a lopsided grin curved at the edges of his mouth. "Over my dead body," he quipped.

She laughed again. It was a softer sound this time; like the third glass of Laphroaig, it went straight to his head.

"Excuse me, Monsieur Solo." Mitaka spoke up from the driver's seat, his English halting and heavily accented. "Where are we going?"

"Oh, blast!" Rey's slim fingers slapped lightly against her forehead. "I got so carried away talking that I forgot to tell you— just drop me off at Charles de Gaulle-Étoile, I can still catch the RER—"

"It's no trouble to drive you home," Ben hastily interrupted. "Least I can do."

"But my flat's in the 11th arrondissement, off Place de la Nation," she protested. " _Extremely_ out of the way for you, I'm sure."

Ben didn't know where Place de la Nation was and, after three months, he had only the vaguest idea what an arrondissement entailed, but he'd heard _things_ about the Paris metro. "It's too dangerous to commute at this hour."

"Nonsense, I've been doing it forever and I've got my pepper spray— which, strictly speaking, isn't _legal_ here in France, so don't tattle on me, all right—"

"Rey." He didn't mean for his take-charge voice to come out but it did, the amount of Scotch he'd imbibed mixing with his concern that her normal routine involved carrying illegal pepper spray around in her purse. "I'm worried for your safety. I would much prefer it if I brought you back to your apartment."

Ben regretted the words as soon as they flew out of his mouth. Rey would find it awfully high-handed, especially coming from someone she'd only just met. Actually— the fact that she was in a car with _two people_ she'd only just met was in all likelihood a huge factor in her decision to take her chances with the train.

Indeed, she stiffened, her hazel eyes flashing. He held her gaze, refusing to back down. And maybe it was the liquor talking, but the longer they looked at each other the more it seemed that she wasn't _entirely_ angry. Something else lurked beneath her flare of temper— some subtle, wary thing that could almost be fascination.

Their impasse was broken when she fidgeted in the seat, crossing her legs. "Fine," she grunted. "But I'm texting my roommate. Have you got any ID?"

Ben showed her his driver's license. Rey snapped a photo, then puttered around on her phone for a while, probably sending all the details to the aforementioned roommate.

"This isn't a scam, is it?" he teased. "You're not going to steal my identity and buy a villa on some lush tropical island?"

Rey smirked. "I heard that the Caribbean's lovely all year round."

_It is,_ Ben thought. _Let me take you there._

He blinked. Where had _that_ come from? Annoyed with himself, he shifted away from her, putting a safe distance between them. "The Caribbean _is_ nice. I recommend Sint Eustatius. There'll be no cruise ships to ruin your ocean view."

"I'll hop over there tomorrow in my shiny new private jet that I'll charge to your driver's license," Rey deadpanned.

"It is _completely_ possible to hack someone's bank account if you have the information on their driver's license."

"Really? How?"

He racked his brain for any such method, but in the end had to settle for raising an eyebrow at her. "I'm not going to give you a crash course, if that's what you're hoping for."

"Damn." She wrinkled her nose. "You've foiled my cunning scheme."

It was Ben's turn to laugh. He couldn't help it. The sound was rusty and short-lived, even to his own ears, but the woman beside him lit up like she'd just been given the whole world. She looked so radiant— so _gratified—_ that a spark of arousal tugged low at his abdomen, and he turned his face away from her as an act of self-defense.

How easy it was to fall into the old song and dance of attraction again. Although he hadn't slept with anyone since Bazine, he had always expected— in a distant, logical sort of way— that he would someday want to, but now the day had come and he wasn't ready, had never let it sink in that he would ever need to be ready.

As if sensing that the moment had passed, Rey leaned closer to the driver's seat and quietly issued directions to Mitaka in seamless French. Ben stared out the window as the Aston Martin coasted down unfamiliar routes, leaving behind what little of Paris he knew. Most of his time so far had been divided between La Défense and his penthouse overlooking the Musée d'Orsay, as well as the swanky bars and Michelin-starred restaurants where informal meetings took place. The city gradually changed in appearance, becoming more dimly lit and less polished— although a European city could never _truly_ be ugly, could it, with the cobblestone streets branching off from the main road and the stately architecture and, beneath all the trappings of the modern era, the sense of history that pervaded the Old World...

_You're too much of a romantic,_ Ben could practically hear Snoke sneering. _There's no place for that in this kind of life, my boy._

They eventually reached a grassy, circular park dominated by a large bronze sculpture of a woman standing on a globe atop a chariot pulled by lions. This, as far as Ben could surmise, was Place de la Nation.

"Do you want to grab a bite?" Rey blurted out. The question was loud and stilted after they'd spent the past several minutes in complete silence, but there was still a determined cheerfulness to her tone that made him not want to refuse.

He should, though.

But his stomach grumbled and the liquor in his system made him reckless, and she was eying him with such hope that...

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "Why not?"

🎀💎🎀

It took all of five seconds after Mitaka dropped them off at the restaurant and left to find a parking spot for Ben to regret his impulsive decision.

For starters, calling it a restaurant was a stretch. Tucked between two Haussmann style apartment buildings, it served only gyro wraps and lemonade and boasted a grand total of five tables, all of which were occupied. The line at the takeout counter moved at a brisk pace, but there were still a lot of people; some looked tired, as if they'd just gotten off work, while others were lively and flushed from Friday night drinks. More than a few stared at Ben like they couldn't figure out what he was doing here.

He wasn't sure, either. Maybe he ought to have left his Patek Philippe in the car.

"This is one of, like, three places in the area that's open until late," Rey explained as they fell in line. "They make the _best_ gyros. The other two are a traditional brasserie and a pizza joint— too rich for my blood."

"I mean, if you want to sit down..." Ben started to venture, but she was already shaking her head.

"We are _not_ paying twelve euros for pizza," she said firmly.

"We're not," he agreed. " _I_ am." He'd power lunched at Alain Ducasse's Le Meurice restaurant several hours ago; twelve euros was nothing.

Rey lifted her chin. "I want a gyro wrap. And I want you to try one as well."

Ben raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. "Fine."

"Good."

"You're a handful, aren't you?" he observed.

She looked away from him, flashing an enigmatic smile down at the sidewalk. "So I've been told."

It was that smile that did it. It was the glint of mischief in her hazel eyes and the _fucking_ Scotch that he would later blame for what he did next, stepping a little closer into her personal space, his voice a low, gravelly murmur all of a sudden. "Bit of a brat, really."

She sucked in a sharp breath. When her gaze snapped up to meet his once more, it had darkened slightly, as if smoldering with slow fires. Even in heels she was several inches shorter than he was, a fact emphasized by their newfound proximity, and her slender figure was so much smaller compared to his.

The size difference made him feel like he was drowning. In a not entirely unpleasant sort of way.

"I've definitely never been told _that,"_ she remarked, her own voice throaty and soft.

His hand itched to reach out— to cross the minuscule distance between them and hold hers. That was new. Ben was no stranger to the desire to kiss someone, but to hold their hand?

There was just— _something_ about her.

He stuffed his fists into his pockets, not caring that Ermenegildo Zegna was probably turning over in his grave in Piedmont. Soon it was their turn in the line and Rey immediately fell into easy conversation with the burly man at the counter; before Ben could so much as reach for his wallet, she was already counting out a handful of coins and dropping them into a small wooden tray. He couldn't think of a way to insist that he be the one to pay for their meal without embarrassing her, but it still sat wrong with him, especially when an accidental glimpse at the contents of her shabby canvas pouch yielded only loose change and a crumpled five euro note.

So perhaps he was a _little_ disgruntled when he said, "Thank you" as she passed him his gyro wrap.

_"De rien,"_ she chirped, dimpling up at him.

And he was loath to admit it, but the sight of those dimples went a long way toward improving his mood.

Although Rey happily munched away during the short walk to Place de la Nation, Ben didn't tackle his gyro wrap until they were sat at a bench near the statue. As he bit into layers of freshly-baked pita, spit-roasted beef, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce doused in creamy tzatziki, a childhood memory surfaced from the depths of his mind— a late autumn night in New York, scarfing down shawarma with his father as they strolled beneath the hickory trees of Central Park. He must have been eleven or twelve years old at the time, and things hadn't been as strained between him and Han as they were now.

Even good memories could be painful to look back on in the light of a vastly different present.

Rey spoke up, her mouth full, encompassing the open space around them with the sweep of an arm. "This was originally called Place du Trône back when the monarchy was alive and kicking. They renamed it Place du Trône-Renversé during the French Revolution— the Square of the Toppled Throne." She pointed south. "A guillotine was set up there and it was the most active one in Paris."

"Any famous victims?" Ben asked.

"Well, the Martyrs of Compiègne, they were Discalced Carmelites— they sang hymns as they mounted the scaffold one by one. There was the poet Chénier, he wrote a series of iambs during his imprisonment that were smuggled to his family by one of the jailers, and he was executed along with a princess of Monaco," Rey rattled off, barely pausing to swallow her food. Even if the topic itself weren't already morbidly fascinating, Ben would have been a captive audience due solely to her animated features and the eagerness in her tone. "Then there was Benaut, a composer, he wasn't even French, he was Belgian, but he took holy orders a few years after moving to Paris, which landed him on the Tribunal's bad side. Who else— ooh! Cécile Renault and Henri Admirat, they were guillotined on the same day. Henri shot one of the Committee members at point-blank range, but _both_ his pistols misfired, can you imagine, while Cécile tried to kill Robespierre himself with a couple of small knives hidden in a basket, and she heckled the prosecutor during her trial..."

Ben didn't realize he was staring— or perhaps more of _gawking—_ until Rey trailed off, biting her lip. "Sorry." She forced out an embarrassed chuckle. "I get carried away talking about the Reign of Terror sometimes. Very weird, I know."

"It's not," he hastened to assure her, even though he was somewhat reeling from the overload of gory information. She shot him an incredulous glance that somehow inspired him to honesty and not the usual smooth talk. "Well, I guess it's a _little_ weird," he conceded, "but not in a bad way. It's actually kind of cool."

Her cheeks turned pink in the amber glow of the lampposts. The silence that they fell into was comfortable this time; Ben ate his gyro wrap and idly perused their tranquil surroundings as he thought of martyrs and revolutions.

🎀💎🎀

It was almost two in the morning when he had the car come around again and brought Rey to her door. Her apartment building was one of many lining a narrow street that was conspicuously more dilapidated than others in the area that Ben had seen thus far. He noticed that both she and Mitaka scanned the road from one end to the other before the latter hopped out of the driver's seat to open Rey's door for her.

Ben escorted Rey up the front steps. She spent a good several minutes rummaging through the bottomless pit that was her handbag before producing her keys with a triumphant jingle that made him crack a half-smile.

"I guess this is it," she mused.

"I guess it is." He was shaken by how much he wished it wasn't. He wished he could continue sitting beside her while she told him about guillotines.

Her shoulders slumped just the slightest bit. The odd notion crept into his mind that he'd failed some sort of test, that he'd said the wrong thing. But that was only possible if—

— if she wanted to see him again—

"It was nice meeting you." She turned to fit her key into the lock. "Good luck with your work. I hope that you enjoy the rest of your time in Paris."

"I need to pay you back." The words flew past his lips before he could rein them in. "For the food. We can have dinner tomorrow, if you like. My treat—" He tried not to cringe. _"My treat"?_ He sounded like a teenager asking his crush out for milkshakes after their last class of the day. Rey hesitated, one hand on the doorknob, and more words spilled forth like drops from a babble faucet that Ben didn't have the slightest clue how to switch off. "It doesn't _have_ to be dinner, or tomorrow. It can be lunch or coffee or the opera on any day, really— whatever you like—"

"I would love to have dinner with you," she interrupted him so quietly that he thought he was imagining it at first. "But I'm working the same hours tomorrow night. I'm free on Wednesday, though?"

"Wednesday," he repeated, his heart hammering in his chest. "Yes. Dinner on Wednesday. Perfect." His fingers were trembling as he pulled out his phone. What was the _matter_ with him? "I'll— I can call you?"

"Yeah." She sounded on the verge of breathless, her dimples peeking out. "Yeah, you can call me."

After saving her number, he tucked his phone back into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. Rey stepped forward, standing on tiptoe and pressing her cheek lightly against his, one and then the other. He was frozen where he stood, piercingly hyper-aware of the softness of her skin and the floral, fruity scent of her perfume.

It was over so fast. The distance between them widened as she turned the doorknob. "Good night, Ben."

"Good night," he echoed, and she shot him one last smile over her shoulder before disappearing into her apartment.

Ben was left staring at a closed door in a darkened street, underneath a silver net of summer constellations, wondering what he had just done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Les arrondissements of Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrondissements_of_Paris).
> 
> [Place de la Nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_de_la_Nation). This article also contains links to the Wiki entries of the people who were executed there that Rey mentioned.
> 
> [The Committee of Public Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety) was the provisional government during [the Reign of Terror](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror) and [the Revolutionary Tribunal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Tribunal) was one of its most powerful engines.


	3. l'été, part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [lazyanakin](https://twitter.com/lazyanakin/status/1255152743502708737?s=21), [letstrysomefanfic](https://letstrysomefanfic.tumblr.com/post/616549220966645760), and [britdo123](https://twitter.com/britdo123/status/1254648210779287553?s=21) for the gorgeous artwork, [jadedspunk](https://twitter.com/jadedspunk/status/1255104577864699904?s=21) for the lovely moodboard, and everyone who has read, commented, bookmarked, and left kudos!

First Order Global's base of operations in Western Europe was the tallest building adorning the skyline of La Défense. An elegant, fifty-five-storey construct of obsidian steel and tempered glass chiseled into a stylized dagger shape, it towered over the Paris metropolitan area's business district like an icy monument to capitalism, or perhaps its ruthless god.

Ben's office occupied most of the top floor below the helicopter pad. It was a sleekly furnished space divided into his main workstation, a dining area complete with a bar, a small personal gym, and a state-of-the-art conference room. The chairs and sofas were upholstered in full grain black leather and the floors were covered in woven slate gray carpeting. Paintings by Martial Raysse and Pierre Soulages decorated the few sections of ivory wall that were scattered among rows of floor-to-ceiling windows.

From his desk, Ben had an unparalleled view of the _aire urbaine._ He'd never cared for it much; Paris could be any other city in the world at this height, and he always had too much work on his plate to afford any form of gazing idly out of windows.

This Wednesday was, however, proving to be quite the exception. It was a few minutes past noon and he was staring at the sea of roads and rooftops, no less than fifteen documents requiring his signature spread out on the ebony wood table in front of him, forgotten.

He was waiting for a text.

More specifically, for a text in response to _his._

This wasn't the first time he'd messaged Rey. He'd checked in with her before having Rumitar, his secretary, make dinner reservations on Monday; there'd been something vaguely chiding about her _so nice to finally hear from u :)_ then, but perhaps he was reading too much into it. She'd gone on to ask him how he was and he'd responded politely before ending the conversation, as he'd had a meeting to attend.

He'd been tempted to message her again on Tuesday— and to an even greater degree than he'd been tempted during the past weekend. Eventually, he'd decided against it; men of his age and status did not _text._ Also, without the judgment-clouding abilities of Laphroaig Single Malt, it had started dawning on him that pursuing a— _an anything_ with her was ill-advised. The two of them hailed from such different worlds.

Common sense decreed that he should cancel their dinner— formulate some combination of lame excuse and halfhearted offer to reschedule that would make it clear he'd lost interest while not being overly rude. At thirty-three years old, Ben was a CEO for the largest consulting firm on the planet and one of the major players on the corporate stage. He had no business messing around with a college student moonlighting as a cocktail waitress. The rational thing to do would be to call it off as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Then why the hell had he just texted Rey, _See you tonight_? And why was he twiddling his thumbs like a schoolboy as he waited for her to reply?

His phone dinged. Ben took a deep, fortifying breath, then looked at the screen. The name _Rey Niima_ beamed up at him and, to his horror, he found himself having to bite back a smile. Shaking his head at his foolishness, he grabbed the phone from the desk and read her message, parsing with some difficulty the string of lowercase letters and abbreviations and the utter absence of punctuation until he was finally able to determine that she'd just gotten out of class, was on her way to her other job at a coffee shop, and she would meet him at the restaurant at seven on the dot.

Frowning, he called her.

She picked up on the second ring. _"Oui, all_ _ô?"_ The cacophony of vehicles and random chatter in the background made it apparent that she was out walking on the busy streets.

"There's no need for you to commute later," Ben said without preamble. "I can pick you up at the café."

"You're coming from your office?"

"Yes."

"Then you can't pick me up." Rey sounded amused. "I get off at six and traffic's going to be a nightmare." As if to emphasize her point, a car horn blared loudly in the distance. "My work's only three stops away from Port des Invalides, though. In all honesty, I'll probably get there before you do."

"Is that a challenge?" Ben quipped.

"A challenge I'm going to win." She hesitated for a beat or so, and then asked, almost shyly, "Have you had lunch yet?"

He blinked. He couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him that. "Um— no, actually."

"Well, eat something!" Through the thin layer of static, her tone was aghast. Almost _offended._ "There's a food truck near your building that makes these amazing roast beef sandwiches at a reasonable price— reasonable for La Défense, anyway— I can send you their location?"

"That'd be great, thanks." Ben usually had elaborate full-course meals courtesy of Swiss-trained chefs sent up from First Order's cafeteria whenever he was feeling peckish, but he didn't want to offend her with an outright refusal. "What about you? Have you eaten?"

"I will at the café, before my shift." She paused again. "Okay, as much as I'm enjoying lording my superior knowledge of Parisian rush hour and food trucks over you, I really do need to get on the train."

He tried not to feel _too_ disappointed that their conversation was about to be cut short. "All right. Take care."

With a cheerful _"À bientôt,"_ Rey ended the call. Ben's phone was still in his hand when she texted the food truck's address; suppressing the urge to reply, he placed the phone back on his desk and pulled one of the still accusingly unsigned documents toward him, thinking that he should get some work done before Snoke's sixth sense kicked in and he rang from New York demanding to know why his protégé was letting some fresh-faced twenty-something twist him into knots on company time.

It took every ounce of Ben's willpower to not glance at the clock on the wall, knowing that, once he did, he would no longer be able to help himself from counting down the hours until he saw Rey again.

🎀💎🎀

She was already standing outside the restaurant when Mitaka dropped him off.

"Don't say anything," Ben warned.

"I wasn't planning on it," Rey protested, her hazel eyes sparkling and the barest hint of a smug grin playing at the corners of her mouth. "This is my _I'm not saying anything_ face."

"Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that it's remarkably similar to your _I told you so_ face?"

"You said it, not me," she sniffed.

He chuckled, holding out his arm. "Shall we?"

She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, and that alluring fragrance of apples and ginger and lily of the valley assailed his senses once more. The days were long in France in the summer and, although it was dinner time for most, the sun would not set for another couple of hours. The sky was a pale, rosy gold color over the Seine, and Rey was heart-wrenchingly beautiful in the dusky light. She was wearing the same sensible black heels from Friday and a navy blue dress with white polka dots that was nipped at the waist and flared out into a knee-length skirt; the gauzy material fluttered around her long, slender legs in the breeze, and Ben wondered if it was as soft to the touch as it looked.

She caught him staring and waggled her eyebrows at him in a manner that was so exaggerated it was comical. He laughed again, her humor taking the edge off of his embarrassment. "I'm sure you were the most glamorous waitress at your coffee shop today."

"I'm a barista there, actually, and of course I didn't wear this at work." Rey patted her omnipresent, enormous handbag. "I've got my uniform and trainers tucked in here."

"Trainers?"

" _Sneakers,_ you lousy American," she teased. "I couldn't very well go running around campus in these heels, could I?"

"I guess not," Ben conceded. Over-sized purses were a trend, but other women of his acquaintance never put it to as good a use as Rey did. "What else have you got in there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"All 142 crown jewels?" he persisted. "The Rosetta Stone?"

She was giggling now, squeezing his arm. "No, those are in my _other_ bag—"

" _Bonsoir,_ monsieur. Madame."

Ben tore his gaze away from Rey to find the restaurant's host regarding them, stone-faced. They'd somehow reached the entrance without either of them noticing, and the host was not taking kindly to having been ignored for the last several seconds.

"Good evening." Ben cleared his throat. "We have a reservation under Benjamin Solo. Table for two."

The host consulted his clipboard, then nodded. "This way, please."

The restaurant was called L'Imperial. It was a cantilevered building that protruded from the Left Bank of the Seine in an array of clean wooden lines; the interior was draped in a dark, neutral palette, with copper accents and natural stone floors. As per Ben's instructions, Rumitar had requested a table by the angled windows, which offered breathtaking views of the ornate, snowy white Alexandre III bridge— garnished with Art Noveau lamps and sculptures of cherubs, nymphs, and golden winged horses— and the equally extravagant Grand Palais on the Right Bank, with its intricate ironwork and glass-domed roof.

"Have you been here before?" Rey asked once they were settled.

"No, but I've heard glowing reviews from colleagues," Ben said. "It struck me as a good restaurant for a... a thank-you dinner."

"A thank-you dinner," Rey echoed. "Is that what this is?"

"I did mention that I'd pay you back for the gyro wrap," he reminded her.

"Right."

The waitress came over bearing two flutes of Dom Pérignon. After she'd introduced herself as Threna and pleasantries had been exchanged, she informed them in fluent English that the appetizer would only be a few more minutes.

"Oh, but we haven't ordered yet," Rey said, startled.

"It's a fixed menu, madame," Threna smoothly replied. "We will have seventeen courses in all."

After Threna walked away, Rey's gaze dropped to the white tablecloth. "Sorry," she muttered. "This is my first time eating at this kind of place."

"It's all right," Ben assured her. "I didn't know, either." He picked up his glass and held it out to her. "Cheers to seventeen courses?"

Rey's eyes lit up. "To seventeen courses. _Sant_ _é_ _."_ She clinked her glass against his and, as Ben sipped his champagne, the wild and fleeting thought occurred to him that there could truly be no lovelier moment than this, bubbly on his tongue and Rey in her polka dot dress while the tranquil waters of the Seine glittered all around them.

Threna returned, serving their appetizer and wine pairing with aplomb. "Leaf of Jerusalem artichoke with oil of hazelnut and rye aioli. Enjoy."

"Ben," Rey whispered once they were alone at their table again, "it's four leaves stuck into a bed of... moss and twigs."

"It's just the appetizer. They usually build up to heartier and heartier courses with menus like this," Ben lied through his teeth. It wasn't _usually,_ but _sometimes,_ and he was hoping that L'Imperial would be one of those rare exceptions to the rule. He was belatedly realizing that someone like Rey, who adored gyro wraps and roast beef sandwiches, might not appreciate the small servings that this type of restaurant tended to put out.

They had two leaves each, which Rey judged to be _surprisingly good, actually,_ and then the next course arrived in the form of a soup of tomato water seasoned with ham fat and aromatic herbs.

"Very nicely flavored," she declared. "I _love_ that they serve it in thimbles instead of bowls, it's so _novel,_ wouldn't you say?"

Ben snorted.

By the third course— one pickled quail egg for each diner, in a nest of hay— Rey seemed to decide to make the best of it, valiantly striving for dinnertime conversation. "So— I guess texting isn't your specialty."

"It's not." Ben idly swirled the fresh measure of wine in his glass as he willed himself to abstain from blushing. "I'm accustomed to just calling someone when I need to talk."

"SMS is too millennial for you. I get it."

He shot her an affronted glare. "At thirty-three, I'm well within the millennial age range, thank you very much. How old are _you?"_

Her lips curved into a beatific smile. "Twenty-three."

"You're not even a millennial. You're—" Ben groaned— _"Gen Z."_

God, she was ten years younger than he was. To at last be able to put an exact number on it made it more... _chilling,_ somehow. He felt lecherous.

Rey didn't seem to mind, however. She was still smiling, her cheeks stained with a pink flush that hadn't been there a moment ago. Her eyes had widened— or, no, it was her pupils that had blown out slightly. Her pearly white teeth sank into the red-tinted swell of her bottom lip.

Fuck.

He was in trouble.

Threna materialized at Ben's elbow to serve the pasta course and its wine pairing— a delicate assemblage of angel hair and black truffle shavings that barely lasted two forkfuls and a fruity, mineral Italic Riesling that complemented it to a T. So far, on a purely gastronomic level, this was turning out to be one of the best dining experiences Ben had ever had, although it didn't escape his notice that Rey poked mournfully at the leftover garnish. There were still thirteen dishes on the way, though, so he retained a faint optimism that she would be satisfied afterwards.

He cast around for a topic to keep the flow of the conversation going and landed on, "Twenty-three isn't the typical age to be a college sophomore, is it?"

She gave the garnish one last prod before looking up at him. "I applied late."

"I took a gap year after high school, too," Ben said. "Traveled for a while so I could figure out what I wanted to do with my life."

"Oh?" Rey leaned forward excitedly. "Where'd you go?"

"Well— here. Europe, I mean, but mostly Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. I skipped France entirely that time around." His parents had forked out the cash, eager for him to _find himself,_ and to their utmost disappointment he had returned to the States with the goal of becoming a bloodsucking business major. "You?"

"Er." Rey took a sip of wine. "After sixth form, I worked for a few years until I'd saved up enough to move to Paris."

Ben inwardly cursed his stupid mouth. Snoke had taught him to never apologize, but he couldn't help what tumbled from his lips, halting and stricken. "Rey, I'm so sorry— that was callous of me, talking about a _gap year—_ I didn't think—"

He stopped, certain that he was digging an even bigger hole for himself with each ill-considered word, but she shook her head.

"It's all right. I never got the chance to travel, so I'll live vicariously through you. Tell me about your Eurotrip."

Desperate to make amends and to leave the awkward patch behind as quickly as possible, Ben talked all throughout the next few courses, regaling his dining companion with tales of sketchy hostels and getting lost and interesting people he'd met. He skipped the part where he'd gotten sick of the aforementioned hostels in less than a month and marched to the nearest Park Hyatt and never looked back— and, for some reason, he also didn't tell her about Rome, about meeting the man who would one day be his mentor in Rome.

There was something about Rey that made Ben want to keep her as far apart from Snoke as possible.

Halfway through the _r_ _ô_ _ti_ course— slivers of duck breast drizzled with a sauce made from Burlat cherries that had been harvested on the Luberon massif in Provence— Rey asked, "So, how does Paris compare to all those other cities you've been to?"

"No idea," Ben ruefully admitted. "I haven't had much time to sightsee."

"That's terrible." She sounded even more offended than when he'd told her that he hadn't had lunch yet. "The situation begs to be rectified, monsieur."

"Are you offering to show me around sometime?"

"Maybe." She smiled down at her wineglass, glancing up at him for a few heart-stopping seconds before lowering her gaze again, coyly shy. "If you're nice to me."

And Ben's stupid, traitorous dick twitched with interest.

Jesus Christ.

He was saved from having to formulate some kind of suave reply when Threna arrived with two plates that each bore a single stalk of smoked white asparagus and half of a grilled lettuce heart.

"Minimalist!" Rey exclaimed once their waitress had drifted out of earshot. "Just the way I like my salads."

Ben laughed again. It was starting to become a worrying habit— when he was with Rey, at least.

As the meal progressed, the servings never really got any bigger, but the wine and small talk continued to flow as the restaurant filled up. He learned that she was studying astrophysics at Bayonard University in the Latin Quarter and that she lived with three schoolmates at the apartment off Place de la Nation— Finn and Rose, who were American, and Jannah, a fellow Brit. Jannah was Rey's roommate, the one she'd sent Ben's details to, and the one who had immediately run a frantic background check on him.

Ben cringed at the thought of what a Google search of his name might turn up. "She didn't come across anything too mortifying, I hope."

"None at all," was Rey's breezy reply. "You lead a charmed life, Mr. Most Eligible Wall Street Bachelor of the Year."

"My, would you look at the time," Ben deadpanned. "I have to go. It was nice seeing you."

"No, stay—" Rey was almost falling out of her chair from how hard she was giggling— "we have more tiny food to eat—"

The sun was setting when they were served their last course— moss coated in white chocolate paired with a lemongrass tisane.

Rey goggled at Threna. "This is actual moss? _La mousse v_ _é_ _g_ _é_ _tale?"_

Threna assured her that it certainly was.

It was an unspoken rule in Ben's world that one should always act like they'd seen it all— that no peccadilloes of extravagance were to be blinked at under any circumstances. Thus, it threw him for a loop when Rey hissed, after Threna had withdrawn, "Look, Ben, I'll eat anything and, who knows, this might even be tasty, but this is a posh restaurant and they're making us eat stuff they scraped off the wall— I think you ought to demand a refund—"

Ben burst out laughing. Again. He laughed so hard that people sitting at the nearby tables cast censorious glares in his direction.

Not Rey, though. By the time he'd calmed himself, she was gazing at him with a soft expression that could almost be wonder.

"You know," she said, and there was nothing coy about her shyness now, "you have a really nice smile."

"So do you," he replied, his eyes crinkling at the corners and a little more of the ice in his heart beginning to thaw.

🎀💎🎀

They stepped out of L'Imperial to a city bathed in the violet hues of twilight. The lampposts were burning bright gold, as were all the monuments of Paris. There were less cars and cyclists, but plenty of tourists snapping photos and teenagers loitering by the riverbank and locals taking their dogs out for an evening stroll. Rey grabbed Ben's arm and dragged him to a pâtisserie across the street that was just about to close up shop for the day; tipsy from the wine, content to just watch her, he stood by as she launched into an animated, rapid-fire discussion with the proprietor that he had no chance of understanding.

Rey eventually tossed some coins down on the tray, bid the somewhat disgruntled-looking proprietor a good evening, and turned back to Ben with two chocolate éclairs that she proudly told him she'd snagged at more than half off.

They crossed the street again, heading toward the stately, glowing structure that was Pont Alexandre III, and Rey tackled her éclair like she hadn't eaten in days.

"I'll pick a better restaurant for our next thank-you dinner," Ben promised.

"L'Imperial wasn't _bad,"_ Rey protested while chewing. "Sure, they could've served us the whole duck breast— and the actual lobster instead of that jelly thing sprinkled with its essence or whatever— but the flavors were a unique experience. And the company was brilliant." She elbowed him playfully and he cracked a smile. "But— our next thank-you dinner?"

"You got me an éclair," Ben pointed out. "So I have to pay you back again."

"I bought these éclairs _and_ those gyro wraps with pocket change. That dinner must have set you back, what, a hundred quid?"

It had been closer to four hundred, actually, but he wasn't about to tell her that. He shrugged, and she continued her rant. "Point is, what I can afford pales considerably to what _you_ can afford, so it's a— a _mockery_ of a thank-you dinner, isn't it, and, what's more, I don't buy you food so you'll buy me food, too—"

She was saying all of this while her cheeks were bulging with an extraordinarily large mouthful of pastry. It was fascinating and endearing all at once, and it made Ben discard all pretense.

"A date, then," he blurted out. "Not a thank-you dinner. A date. This one was a date as well."

Rey finally swallowed. Then she huffed. "Good."

The back of her hand brushed against his as they stepped onto the bridge. He had no idea whether it was an accident or not, but it was the most natural thing in the world for him to lace his fingers through the gaps between hers. They were holding hands as they crossed the river on the graceful white arch that was ablaze with lamps; beyond the golden wings of the Pegasus sculptures that adorned Pont Alexandre III's columns, the crystalline dome of the Grand Palais beamed a radiant sapphire in the distance.

Ben's steps slowed without him noticing. He was too busy staring, just taking it all in. Then Rey squeezed his hand and he looked at her, and he realized that they were standing in the middle of the bridge, people streaming past all around them.

"Pont Alexandre III commemorates the Franco-Russian alliance," Rey told him. "That's why you've got the Nymphs of the Neva right here at the center bearing the arms of Imperial Russia. Nicholas II laid the foundation stone— the bridge is named after his father."

She nodded at something across the water and Ben followed her line of sight. Before his eyes, the Eiffel Tower began to glitter over the Seine, tiny white lights running through its golden veins like stars, rays of silver emanating from its base in beacons that shone all over Paris.

It wasn't the first time Ben had witnessed the tower's hourly light show. But it was the first time he'd witnessed it on the river, holding someone's hand, surrounded by the nymphs and lanterns of a bridge whose foundation stone had been laid by the last Romanov emperor.

"This city is ridiculous," Ben said flatly.

Rey chuckled. "Tell me about it."

She finished off the last of her éclair and shoved the wrapper into her purse. "Um," Ben ventured, "you've got some chocolate— right there—" He gestured vaguely at the corner of Rey's mouth.

"Oh, blast—" She rubbed at the spot but only succeeded in smearing the chocolate around. "Did I get all of it?"

"Not even close." He stifled a laugh. "Here, let me—"

And he didn't know what possessed him to do it, maybe he could once again blame alcohol and this _ridiculous_ city, but, whatever the case, he leaned in close and pressed his lips to the corner of hers, pecking away the milk chocolate that was sweet on his tongue. It was only then that he realized what he was doing and he made to stumble backwards, to apologize—

— but then Rey was clutching at the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling him close, and suddenly they were kissing, in full view of everyone who had stopped to watch the Eiffel Tower's lights, and she was smiling against his lips and Ben was grinning in return, kissing her and kissing her as the illuminated waters of the Seine glimmered below them, rippling through the oars of summer and of night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [Rumitar Shay](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rumitar_Shay).  
> [The Imperial](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Imperial_%28Kuari_Princess%29).  
> [Threna](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Threna).  
> [Bayonard Institute of Higher Education](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bayonard_Institute_of_Higher_Education).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> I based the meal structure on [this classical French menu](http://thegreatgastro.com/en/dining-story-17-french-course-menu-2/) but the individual dishes were taken from various Michelin-starred restaurants around the world. This was played for laughs; I'm sure a traditional French fine dining experience would be much heartier! Maybe xD


	4. l'été, part iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week we have moodboards by [dinkerinosaurus](https://dinkerinosaurus.tumblr.com/post/616831740106948608/a-small-moodboard-tribute-to-baby-it-will-bury) and [reyloswifts](https://twitter.com/reyloswifts/status/1258983018544467971?s=21), as well as art by [msoulove](https://msoulove.tumblr.com/post/616937779935510528/baby-it-will-bury-us-chapter-1-diasterisms) and [kayurka](https://kayurka.tumblr.com/post/616849785838845952/inspired-by-3rd-chapter-of-baby-it-will-bury-us). Thank you guys so much! 
> 
> **Content warning for this chapter: There is a description of weight loss in the last line of the paragraph that begins with "The excuse sounded pathetic even to his own ears."**
> 
> To contact me regarding this story or to know when the next chapter will be posted, you can head on over to [my Tumblr blog](https://kylorenvevo.tumblr.com/), with the caveat that you won't be able to see my update schedule unless you use a browser instead of the app. I also sometimes talk about this fic and post excerpts on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/kylorenvevo). Hope to see y'all there! 😘

It took precisely five minutes for Ben to start panicking after he dropped Rey off at her lodgings in Nation and kissed her good night on her doorstep. On the drive back to The Grand Oradin, the brand-new five-star hotel in Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin where he'd been living for the past three months, the warm glow of wine and Parisian twilight slowly faded; in its place rose a wash of slow, cold dread.

He had— to put it bluntly— _fucked up._

After a year of staying on his guard due to lessons bitterly learned, Ben had let the city and a pair of pretty eyes get to him. Despite the fact that he should know better by now, he already had one foot on the same old path that was invariably going to lead to heartbreak, as it always had and always would.

_"Your problem,"_ Snoke had said, calling Ben into his office a week after Bazine left, _"is that you're too desperate to not be lonely anymore. Asking some two-bit wannabe starlet to marry you— who_ does _that?"_ The First Order chairman's thin, papery lips had curled in derision. _"Just get with the program and find some vapid young thing and give her an allowance, if you really_ must _dip your wick. Forget about falling in love, that's fool's gold. I hope this incident has woken you up to the realities of life."_

It had, for a while. For a good, solid year, as a matter of fact. And then Ben had met Rey and he'd lost all common sense.

He was still turning their date over in his mind when Mitaka dropped him off at The Oradin. Ben strolled into the gilded lobby and took the elevator to the penthouse suite without fully being aware of his surroundings, preoccupied with the very recent memories of him and Rey strolling along the river hand-in-hand until she'd hesitantly told him that she had an early class the next day. They'd held hands in the Aston Martin's backseat as well, all the way to her apartment. The simple lacing of their fingers together had sparked such a deep feeling of connection that he'd never experienced before.

Of course, now that he had space from her and a moment to think, he understood that it was just his inherent loneliness playing tricks on him, as Snoke had said.

Loneliness and Paris— a potent combination.

The elevator doors slid open and Ben trudged into his suite. Like his primary business environs in La Défense, it occupied the entire top floor and was resolutely modern. It boasted clear glass walls, buttery maple floors, soffit amber lighting, and an open plan that consisted of a master bedroom, a living room, a recreation room with a hundred-inch flatscreen and surround sound, a bathroom with a shower, a bathroom with a jacuzzi, a personal office, a walk-in closet, and a kitchenette with a breakfast bar sculpted from snow-white Thassos marble. The hotel owner was one of Snoke's former protégées and was renting the penthouse out to First Order for an undisclosed monthly sum that Snoke had smugly informed Ben was staggeringly cheap, given the location and the full spectrum of amenities.

It helped to have friends in high places, as Snoke liked to say— although Ben had to wonder what sort of dirt his mentor had on the hotel owner to make the latter so generous.

Ben pushed the button that swept heavy white curtains over the glass walls surrounding the bedroom and bathroom areas and then, minutes later, he was in the shower, letting the spray of hot water cascade gently down his hair and bare chest. His thoughts drifted to Rey once more. He remembered her smile amidst the lanterns of Pont Alexandre III, the silkiness of her lips against his, and how she had tasted like chocolate and cream. He was hard almost before he knew it, and with a frustrated groan of abject surrender he turned the shower off and wrapped a shaking fist around the base of his erection, slowly beginning to pump.

It had been so long.

He was powerless to resist.

The sound of water dripping onto marble tiles and gurgling down the drain mingled with the wet slap of skin and the hitches in his breathing.

In theory, he could have gotten away with not bothering to draw the curtains shut, as The Grand Oradin was the tallest building in the neighborhood and no one would have been able to see him through the glass in any case. But the added privacy was a welcome thing— and even more so now, when he was jacking off to the mental images of someone he'd just met.

Ben closed his eyes, and Rey's dulcet laugh echoed in his ears. Shining in the darkness behind his shut lids were her flushed cheeks and the way she sometimes wrinkled her nose. He saw the way the gauzy skirts of that polka dot dress fluttered around her long, long legs.

He imagined that she was with him, that it was her hand working him to his peak as she kissed his neck, as she whispered in his ear. He had no idea what she would be saying in this situation. Maybe his name. Maybe sweet encouragement. Maybe both. Her small hand would stroke him firmly as his own fingers circled the delicate bones of her wrist and guided her, showing her the rhythm that he preferred. She would be naked, too, and his free hand would run down her back, taking its sweet time before caressing the pert globes of her ass, and she would be pressed up alongside him, so close that her soft breasts would rub against his skin with her every movement.

God, he would bet his entire fortune that she had the cutest tits. The shapeliest ass. The hottest mouth. The tightest little pussy.

_Cum for me, Ben,_ she would murmur, and he would give her what she wanted, ejaculating all over that pretty hand. Or perhaps she would get down on her knees and let him finish in her mouth. A fresh wave of arousal surged through him as he pictured her lavishing his cock with feather-light kisses, her pink tongue darting out to taste him— all while she looked up at him with those gorgeous hazel eyes. A tightness began to build in his abdomen, inexorably pulling downwards. His fist blurred with how fast it was moving, and finally...

When he came, it was with the thought of Rey's lips sealed around his length. It was with her name torn loose from his throat in a strangled gasp. It was like exhaling for the first time since Bazine told him that she'd gotten a job offer in California and was leaving New York for good— and that she wasn't taking any part of him with her.

For that reason, it was that sense of exhaling that made it difficult to breathe for the next few minutes.

Ben finished his shower and got ready to go to bed, switching off all the lights in the penthouse save for the lamp on the nightstand. The phone that he'd placed beside it dinged right after he pulled on a fresh pair of boxers; it was unseeing and automatic, the way he sat on the edge of his mattress and unlocked the screen while failing to peruse the notification. His stomach flipped when he saw that the text was from Rey.

_hope u got home alright xx_

Ben stared at the message for several long moments. "I can't do this again," he said out loud.

He set his phone down without replying, leaving her on _read._

🎀💎🎀

She texted him _good morning_ the next day, and then asked him how he was a few days later. He didn't respond to either of these messages; things fell silent on her end and time passed, slowly. On the first Friday of July, Ben had dinner with Étienne Venamis. Just the two of them, because the universe was cruel and had unleashed the stomach flu on Hux and a freak storm over Copenhagen that delayed Lucas Guile's flight home by several hours.

Normally, Ben would have delighted in Hux's suffering and not cared at all that Guile was languishing in an airport in Denmark— Kastrup Lufthavn wasn't a bad place to be stuck, anyway, even if he _had_ given a fig about Guile's comfort— but the confluence of these two events meant that he had to endure Venamis all on his own. Thus, in a marked contrast to the seventeen-course meal with Rey, this was turning out to be the _worst_ dinner Ben had ever had. Even if it _was_ at Guy Savoy.

"There is no use going through the contract when my associate is not present," Venamis mournfully declared over a brochette of seared veal. "Let us just chat as friends, shall we, Monsieur Solo?"

"Of course." Ben picked at his five-week-aged chuck steak. "What do you wish to talk about?"

"The cocktail waitress you went home with on _that_ night." Venamis flashed a lecherous grin. "How was she?"

Ben's grip tightened around the handle of his steak knife as he fantasized about stabbing Venamis with it. "I'm not too keen on discussing my personal life, Étienne, if it's all the same to you."

"But isn't this the kind of conversation that friends have?" Venamis sipped from his glass of Domaine de l'Arlot Grand Cru Burgundy, a challenging glint in his icy blue eyes. "Or perhaps you are only _pretending_ at friendship? I don't know how I feel about entrusting my business to a liar."

Ben stared at the Frenchman, his temper rising. He couldn't afford to _not_ close this deal. "It went fine," he finally spat out.

"Just 'fine'? That is too bad." Venamis clucked his tongue. "Then again, self-righteous women do tend to be cold fish in bed. To think that we inadvertently subjected you to such a subpar experience!"

_I'm going to kill him,_ Ben realized with something that was almost like wonder. He knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he would forgo the knife entirely and strangle Venamis with his bare hands if the odious man kept talking about Rey. Even a slow and painful death like that seemed almost too good for him.

Venamis took a bite of veal and chewed slowly, regarding Ben with a mixture of sympathy and amusement. "Or perhaps," he said after he'd washed down the mouthful with another sip of wine from a rapidly emptying glass, "it was merely an off night for her? Shall I sample the wares and find out for myself?"

"No," Ben snapped. _Don't even fucking_ speak _to her ever again, bastard,_ he nearly continued, but his dining companion quirked an eyebrow and he forced down his anger. Forced himself to relax and adopt the cool nonchalance that was so prized in the social circles he traversed, while at the same time changing the topic of conversation. "Won't it be just another headache for you, given the situation with Aemele?"

"Oh, _that."_ Venamis waved a dismissive hand at the mention of the mistress who had asked him to leave his wife. "I have managed to smoothen my little bird's ruffled feathers. It turns out that what she _actually_ wanted was a bigger allowance and a holiday in Interlaken."

Ben wrinkled his brow. "Really?"

"What is that doubtful tone?" Venamis chuckled. "Are you really so surprised that a woman isn't above acting up when she desires to be spoiled a bit more? Haven't any of your girls done the same?"

"The answer would be no," Ben retorted acidly, "seeing as I've never kept someone I'm having a relationship with on the payroll."

"Good heavens, it's not a relationship!" Venamis was aghast. "Not in the sense that you're thinking of, anyway. There are no... _feelings_ involved. No expectations. At least—" And here he grimaced— "not if you're doing it _right._ You keep her in the lap of luxury and, in return, she gives you sex. It's like any other business transaction, really. Payment for services rendered, and safer and more discreet than trying your luck in the Pigalle quarter or Rue Saint-Denis. Aemele had me half-convinced that she'd lost the plot, but it turned out to be just another one of her games." He gave a dramatic sigh. "And now I'm down another thousand euros a month _and_ I have to close out the summer in a Swiss tourist trap."

"My condolences," Ben deadpanned.

"Thank you."

An awkward silence fell over the two men as they finished their meal. Ben didn't have much in common with Venamis outside of them potentially doing business together and, with _that_ off the table for now, they had nothing to talk about.

In the end, though, Venamis drained his wineglass, then said to Ben, "I do recommend a similar financial arrangement for you as mine and Aemele's, monsieur." He smiled, not altogether insincerely. "It can get very lonely here in Paris. But at least this way, there will be no broken hearts."

🎀💎🎀

Another week passed and July washed over the city in a full blaze, bringing with it daytime temperatures that were just shy of scorching. One morning found Ben sweltering underneath the summer sun with his hands on his hips and his eyes narrowed at Mitaka, who was trying to fix whatever had caused the Aston Martin to sputter and die two blocks away from the office.

"I'll call for a company car to pick you up, Monsieur Solo," the chauffeur assured him, phone already pressed to his ear. "Then I'll have this one towed to a shop."

Ben nodded. He had removed his suit jacket and it was now hanging off of his arm, but— of all the days to wear a three-piece. He was sweating through his white shirt and his pinstriped gray waistcoat.

"Ben?"

He knew who it was before he even turned to look. He would have recognized that voice anywhere. But he still couldn't believe it. What were the odds that, after almost a month of no contact, Rey would happen to be strolling along this exact same street in La Défense at the exact same time that his car broke down?

The universe was messing with him— in a _hold my beer_ kind of way— after he'd called it cruel.

"Rey." Her name was all he could manage to utter at first. When she didn't say anything and just looked at him with those huge, luminescent eyes that were rendered a tawny golden color in the unforgiving sunlight, he licked his lips nervously and continued, "What are you doing here?"

"Temping." She gestured vaguely in the direction of the sea of office buildings behind him. "One of the secretaries at Canistel AgriStar is on maternity leave. I'm filling in for her."

Ben frowned. "You don't have class?"

"It's already summer break." Rey lifted her chin. "And, frankly, I don't see why you'd choose to care."

It wasn't as if he didn't deserve such a barb, but it still hit home. He had to breathe out the ache in his heart. There were so many things that he wanted to say— things like, _I miss you._ Things like how, over the last few weeks, he'd often found himself spending ages staring at her messages with their read receipts, fighting the urge to finally, _finally_ type a response.

And he even wanted to say that she'd had a starring role in more masturbatory fantasies than he cared to confess, that he'd spent almost every night jacking off to mental images of a woman he'd ghosted and always felt ashamed and stupid afterwards— although she would probably kick him in the balls for that and he wouldn't begrudge her one bit.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I was— I got busy with work."

The excuse sounded pathetic even to his own ears; the line of Rey's mouth tightened, making it clear that she thought the same. She was wearing a peach lavallière blouse and a white pencil skirt with the familiar black heels and over-sized handbag; she looked polished and professional, and Ben almost couldn't speak from how much he longed to mess her up. But, upon closer scrutiny, any notion of _that_ immediately flew out the window— there were dark circles under her eyes as well as a certain sallowness to her complexion that makeup couldn't hide. Her clothes hung a bit loose on her frame, suggesting that she was several pounds lighter than she'd been when she bought them.

"It would have been nice if you had just politely informed me that you weren't interested anymore," Rey said stiffly. "I mean, I'm a big girl, I can take it. But you left me hanging and I was worried that something had happened to you or— you know what—" She shook her head— "it doesn't matter. I have to go."

She shouldered her way past him, but, acting on pure instinct, Ben placed a hand on her arm. Rey froze in her tracks as their eyes locked.

"I'll drop you off," he blurted out.

"With what car?" she asked dryly. Having finished making the requisite calls, Mitaka was bowed under the Aston Martin's raised hood and desperately pretending that he couldn't hear Ben and Rey's conversation.

"They're sending me another. It should be here in a few minutes." Ben was helpless to refrain from squeezing Rey's slender arm. "Please, Rey. It's the least I can do."

Nostrils flaring, she shrugged free of his grip. "Actually, the least you could have done was text me back. Instead, I kept waiting and hoping and..." She trailed off and averted her gaze from his, blinking furiously.

His heart sank as he realized that she was near tears. "I'm sorry," he repeated in a whisper.

In the spate of the long, agonizing moments that it took for her to compose herself while he stood by helplessly, he watched her features shift from vulnerable to resigned. She then drew a deep breath, adjusting the strap of the purse that dangled from her shoulder.

"I should apologize, too," Rey said, still not quite meeting his eyes. "It's not as though I'm your girlfriend or anything like that— I should have managed my expectations. I've been under a lot of stress lately and I took it out on you."

Ben jumped at the opportunity to get to the bottom of why she was paler and thinner compared to the last time he saw her. "Why are you stressed?"

"Hmm, let's see." The barest hint of a wry smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. "I'm a little behind on rent and I lost my scholarship and— and there are some other things. More money things. You won't be able to relate, Monsieur CEO."

Ben stared down at Rey as it all clicked into place. Why she couldn't afford to get fired from her job at the cigar lounge. Why she also had a job as a barista and temped on the side. Why she was so thrifty. Why he'd only ever seen her in one pair of dress shoes, and always carrying the same battered-looking bag.

He'd already known that she wasn't well off. What he was realizing only just now was that she might be in dire straits.

An idea began to form, as gradually and as inexorably as the universe pulling its strings. Ben hated himself for so much as considering it but, once the seed of it was planted in his head, it refused to let go.

_Just get with the program,_ Snoke had said.

_No broken hearts,_ Venamis had promised.

Here was a way for Ben to mitigate the loneliness in France without risking too much once again. A way to be with someone he was attracted to with none of the complications that it would otherwise entail. And it was also a way to help Rey out.

But could he muster the guts to propose such a thing? Would she even say yes? There was a high probability of her laughing in his face— _Jesus,_ maybe she'd even slap charges, or slap _him._ A chill went through Ben as he envisioned a future where he was deported for trying to solicit a college student.

His mother and his grandmother would _kill_ him.

A black Mercedes Benz displaying the First Order logo on its windshield pulled up by the curb, the driver hurriedly scrambling out to open the rear passenger door.

And Ben made up his mind.

"What time does your shift start?" he asked Rey.

"In an hour," she replied warily. "Why?"

"Then—" He cleared his throat— "could we get coffee first? There's something I'd like to talk to you about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [The Grand Oradin Hotel](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_Oradin_Hotel).  
> [CanistelAgriStar](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Canistel_AgriStar).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> [Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin](https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/saint-thomas-daquin-a-picture-postcard-neighborhood-in-paris-206230).  
> [Inspo for Ben's penthouse suite](https://pursuitist.com/inside-432-park-avenue-the-95-million-new-york-city-apartment/).  
> The Quartier Pigalle and Rue Saint-Denis are what you would call red light districts, the former more so than the latter (as I have been given to understand).


	5. l'été, part v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bisous to everyone who has commented on the last chapter! I've not had time to respond individually as I'm juggling a ton of writing projects this quarantine season, but please know that y'all's feedback means the world to me and your thoughts help to shape the character dynamics of this fic. Also, I can't believe it's taken me so long to remember to note this, but the title is taken from the song [Bury Us](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-MS794IAbo) by The Naked and Famous!

The nearest café turned out to be a Starbucks, but it would have to do for now. Ben ordered an espresso for himself and an iced cinnamon dolce latte for Rey as she'd requested, and he waited at the bar until the drinks were ready and he could take them to the corner table that she'd chosen. The store's interior rang with the collective chatter of a crowd consisting of both yuppies and older executives chasing their first caffeine hit of the day; the windows were scintillated with the glint of sunlight off of passing cars that cut through the smog of La Défense.

Ben sat across from Rey and for a while they sipped their drinks in silence, with her regarding him as warily as if he were a snake that was about to strike. After a while he opened his mouth, fully prepared to launch into what he was approaching as a business proposal, but what he _actually_ said was—

"Why did you lose your scholarship?"

She bristled. He could tell that she was fighting the urge to tell him that it was none of his business. But there was a mixture of curiosity and resignation in her eyes, too— curiosity because she was wondering what he wanted to talk to her about, and resignation because she would have to play nice in order to get to the bottom of it.

"My grades slipped. I had three jobs last semester— it's four now with this secretary gig— and it was impossible to stay on top of my schoolwork. Or—" She shrugged— "maybe I just didn't try as much as I should have."

"Three jobs would be too much for _anyone_ who's also attending university," Ben pointed out. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

She looked away, taking another sip of her coffee. "Thank you for saying that."

They fell silent again.

_God,_ this was awkward.

"How come you need four jobs?" Ben asked. After all, she shared an apartment with three other people, and nothing about her suggested that she had a taste for expensive things.

"Bayonard is one of the top-ranking STEM institutions in Western Europe. That also means top-ranking tuition fees," Rey said woodenly. "And my father is... not well," she carefully, hesitantly added. "He is not in a position to help me or himself. So I send money back to England from time to time."

There was something about her tone— a bitterness that seeped in through the cagey way that she phrased her explanation. Ben wanted to know more but he could sense that any further nosiness on his part would not be welcome.

Ah, well. Time to get into it, then.

"What if you no longer had to worry about money?" he ventured.

Rey frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You said earlier that I should have let you know I was no longer interested. That's not entirely correct." He paused, swallowing. "I _am_ interested. Still, I mean. I am interested in you. But..."

The line of her mouth tightened. He was struck by how tired she seemed. "But _what,_ Ben?"

"But I'm not exactly looking for anything serious right now, and that's not going to change," he continued. The light in her hazel eyes dimmed even further, a shadow falling over her lovely face. He took a deep breath, and then the final plunge. "I would, however, like to have an arrangement with you."

"An arrangement," she echoed. Her gaze strayed to the nearby window and remained fixed on a point beyond it.

There was a part of him that couldn't believe how composed he was— a part that was removed from the scene, peering in from the outside with incredulity at his own calmness and the logical pattern of his speech. Then again, he'd made up his mind to treat this meeting the way he would any other, and there _was_ a reason he'd made CEO at thirty-three.

_Act like there's not a single doubt in your mind that you're going to get what you want, and the world shall see fit to give it to you,_ Snoke had once counseled. _A man is measured by his ambitions— and his willpower._

"I want to keep on seeing you. With the understanding that there will be no overly personal feelings involved and that we will both exercise utmost discretion." As he spoke, Ben searched Rey's features for any tells, but she was as impassive as stone. As impassive as someone, he realized, who was used to putting up a front when they had nothing left but their pride. "In return, you will be provided with a monthly allowance, and your rent and tuition will be paid for by me as well. If there's anything in particular that you would like to purchase— a new bag, or—"

"What's wrong with my bag?" she interrupted defensively.

"Nothing," he said, just as defensively. "I'm just saying that if you wish to buy a new one, then you can— you can tell me."

A faint wash of pink rose to her cheeks. He couldn't tell if she was angry or embarrassed, and perhaps she was both. "You're asking me to be your— your—" she sputtered, then broke off as if she couldn't bear to finish the sentence, instead grabbing one of the paper napkins that he'd brought over with their drinks and twisting it between her fingers.

"I'm not forcing you to do anything that you don't want to do." They had reached the most difficult stage of many a business meeting— the outrage when a proposal was deemed too outlandish. It was crucial to weather this point without digging his heels in too much. To let the other party get over their shock and start to come around. "I believe that this will be mutually beneficial for us, but we won't proceed without your full consent."

"And if I _don't_ consent?" Rey snapped.

"Then we go our separate ways and, as an apology for insulting you with this offer, I'll set up a grant that will allow you to finish school without having to worry about tuition," Ben replied. "No strings attached."

It wasn't like he could just leave her to work herself to death. Even if this conversation didn't go the way he was hoping it would, he had to help her through whatever means were at his disposal.

Snoke had always said that compassion would be Ben's downfall.

Rey finally looked at him, her fingers absentmindedly tearing the paper napkin to shreds. There was something in her eyes that he couldn't place— something that reminded him of longing. Of wistfulness.

"Why don't you want to be in a relationship?" she surprised him by asking.

He wasn't ready to tell her about Bazine. He didn't think he would ever be ready— and, besides, wasn't the point of this prospective arrangement to ensure that there'd be no need for them to talk about matters that were too personal, that cut too deep—

Ben cast around for an excuse that wasn't an outright lie. "I'm very busy. First Order Global has yet to dominate the consulting industry in Europe— when I made CEO, I promised I would change that. Having a partner will distract me from my work."

"And it wouldn't be fair to them, either," Rey mumbled.

He sipped his coffee instead of attempting to formulate some kind of response. The truth was, he didn't know what to say to that; neither Bazine nor any of his other exes had cared overly much that his work took up a great deal of his attention, as long as the trips and the Broadway tickets and the designer gifts kept on coming.

Rey's head bobbed forward slightly as she nodded to herself, apparently reaching some kind of decision. "All right. Let's do it."

Ben... short-circuited. There was no other term that could sufficiently describe how his mind went blank. "The— the grant?"

"No." She fixed him with a steady gaze. "The other thing."

He hadn't meant to. He truly hadn't meant to. When he first laid eyes on her in the cigar lounge, it hadn't occurred to him even once, even fleetingly. What men like Venamis and Guile did with women who caught their interest, it wasn't Ben's style at all.

But now...

"Great," he said, operating on autopilot, concluding a successful business presentation the only way he knew how. "I just need some time to hammer out the details. I'll get in touch?"

"Yeah. Do that." Rey checked her phone, then stood up. "I have to get going if I don't want to be late for my shift."

"You don't need to work anymore," he blurted out. "Your rent and tuition will be taken care of and your allowance will be enough to cover all other expenses, I'll make sure of it—"

"With all due respect, monsieur—" And here she flashed him a tight smile— "I can't put much stock in your promises until I actually see the money."

Ben couldn't fault her for her caution, but the prospect of ending on this note left a sour taste in his mouth. He rose to his feet as well. "I'll drop you off at your building—"

"No, thank you." She was polite but firm— even a little sharp. "I prefer to walk. It'll give me a chance to clear my head. Ciao."

And, with that, she gathered the bits of shredded paper napkin and chucked them into the trash on her way out of the café, her half-empty drink nestled in one hand. He watched her go, feeling oddly bereft.

🎀💎🎀

On top of his other responsibilities, it took Ben a couple of weeks to get everything in order. It wasn't as though he could leave it all to Rumitar; the company's secretaries were highly trained to never bat an eyelash at their bosses' demands, but surely _this_ would be pushing it. He and Rey met up for the necessary paperwork and, by the time July was drawing to a close, he'd written her a check for next semester's tuition and another one for rent, and she had a brand-new savings account and a credit card.

There was not much about Rey that escaped Ben's notice, but there were some things during this period that stuck with him in particular. Like the way she clutched each envelope so tightly that he could see the imprints of her fingertips distorting the paper, as if she were afraid that it would vanish should she fail to hold on. He also noticed that she looked at him in much the same way— guarded, yes, but _thorough._ As if she thought she could blink in the next moment and he would be gone.

Ben chalked it up to incredulity at the odd situation on her part, and perhaps even misinterpretation due to a bad case of nerves on his. He'd never done anything like this before, and he almost couldn't believe that it was going so well thus far. Rey didn't get cold feet or renegotiate the terms— she was pleasant and cooperative, if a bit more distant compared to their first two encounters. Again, he couldn't blame her for that.

He decided that he would give her a present. A symbolic token to seal the deal, so to speak. He arrived at this idea during the biweekly check-in with First Order directors, halfway through Ansiv Garmuth's presentation on increasing productivity in the workplace. Garmuth spoke in a monotone and, when his slides weren't composed of endless walls of text, they featured extraneous graphs of what would never be considered cutting-edge data by a long shot. Sitting still during his reports was always a chore; actually _listening_ to him, a task nothing short of herculean. Even Hux, who lived and would most assuredly die by the sword of statistics, often adopted an expression that suggested he was suffering a toothache whenever Garmuth was presenting.

It was no wonder that Ben's attention drifted. There were far more engaging things to contemplate.

Jewelry would be nice to give. Earrings, perhaps, or a bracelet. It had to be not too fancy so that Rey could wear it to outings with her friends— or to school, when classes started back up— but Ben was more than willing to spring for diamonds. She deserved them.

_Are you busy tonight?_ he texted her.

She replied within a minute of him putting his phone back down on the table.

_no y?_

His hands shook slightly as he typed. _Let's have dinner. I'll pick you up wherever at around seven._

It took her longer to respond this time, but when she finally did—

_ok im just at home_

He looked up from his screen. Garmuth was still droning on and on, and Ben suddenly couldn't wait to get out of there.

The director broke off mid-sentence and all heads turned to Ben as he stood up. "Gentlemen, I have some urgent business to attend to back in the city. Please continue the meeting after I leave. Vice President Hux will be in charge."

A stunned silence fell over the First Order executives.

"You're leaving the office? It's only four P.M." Hux looked flabbergasted, as did everyone else. Company work ethic not so subtly decreed that they keep long hours, and Ben had been notorious for sticking to that ever since his first day on the job.

"As I said, it's urgent business." Ben pocketed his phone. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

Hux would not be mollified. "What sort of 'business'?" he demanded, almost angrily.

"It's a public relations issue." Ben was smirking as he strode out of the conference room. "I don't trust anyone to handle it but me."

🎀💎🎀

The Aston Martin had been repaired and it ran as smoothly as ever before pulling up in front of Bucherer in the Triangle d'Or, a neighborhood located between three of Paris' most famous streets— Champs-Élysées, Avenue Montaigne, and Avenue George V— that was home to the flagship stores of several luxury fashion houses and watchmakers. The Bucherer boutique in this area consisted of three floors housed in an elegant building classified as _un monument historique_ on the corner of Boulevard des Capucines; Ben imagined taking Rey shopping here and telling her she could buy anything she desired.

Maybe next time. For now, he had to hurry to pick something out if he didn't want to keep her waiting.

It took almost an hour of browsing the glittering glass cases before his eyes fell on a pair of earrings. A round pastel blue aquamarine capped to the side with a smaller ring of diamonds dangled from each thin ribbon of burnished rose gold. The earrings were feminine yet playful, sophisticated without a hint of stuffiness— they were, to put it simply, _Rey,_ if everything about her was distilled into fine metal and precious gems.

At ten past seven in the evening, he was handing the small box to her in the Aston Martin's backseat as the car peeled out of the streets of Nation. Nervousness rippled through him as he watched her open it and examine the contents; she was wearing a white dress— a soft chiffon arrangement of complicated drapes and ruffled sleeves— and the earrings would be the perfect complement. But perhaps she didn't like them. Perhaps he'd severely misread her tastes.

Ben fought down a wave of disappointment. "You can exchange them. I'll provide you with the receipt— or we can head to the boutique now, if they're still open and you're not too hungry yet—"

"They're beautiful, Ben," Rey said quietly, and his mouth snapped shut. "But I can't accept them. They must have cost so much—"

"I saw them and I thought that they would look good on you," he interrupted. "The price doesn't matter."

She inched closer to him. He automatically draped his arm over the back of the leather seat to give her more room, leaning in to make out her words as she lowered her voice to a whisper so as not to be overheard by Mitaka. "You've already paid for my rent and tuition, and your first monthly deposit came through yesterday. I can't let you spend any more money."

"I have money to spend," he reminded her. It came out a little husky, owing to her nearness. How her slim thigh grazed against his. The heady scent of her. "Those other things were necessities. These are a gift."

"You're going to end up spoiling me," she grumbled, like it would somehow be the worst thing in the world.

"Maybe I _want_ to spoil you," he murmured without thinking.

Or— that wasn't exactly true. He _was_ thinking. Just not about what to say. He was thinking about all those sparkling objects on display at Bucherer, and how he would love to take Rey there and let her have her pick of jewelry and watches and whatever else she wanted. Beautiful things for a beautiful girl.

Her eyes widened slightly and she went quiet, fidgeting a little in her seat. The hem of her white dress rode up as she pressed her knees together.

Ben gestured at the box he was holding. "Shall I?"

Rey handed it to him, biting her lip. She gathered her chestnut brown hair to the side, exposing the graceful slope of her bare neck to him. His mouth watered from how much he longed to press his lips to that smooth-looking skin, from how much he wanted to taste it— to run his tongue over her pulse point until she _moaned._

But she was waiting expectantly, and so he busied himself with fishing one earring out of its case. As his overly large fingers fumbled with the delicate accessory, she said, still keeping her tone as low as possible, "I do have one more question."

"Mmm?"

"What if— what if I change my mind? About all this?" She swallowed. "Do I have to pay you back, or—"

"No." His palm curved at her jawline, the lobe of her ear as soft and silky as a rose petal to the touch as he locked the earring in place. A shiver ran through her frame. "We'll go at your pace and you'll never be forced to do anything you don't like. And if somewhere down the line you decide that this arrangement isn't for you, then you can opt out." She turned to him, draping her hair over her other shoulder, and he leaned forward so that he could fasten the second earring. "There will be no need to pay me back," he concluded gently.

Done with their task, his hands started to fall to his sides, but when the left one brushed against her throat it reacted as if on instinct, and he was powerless to stop it from resting atop her shoulder, his fingers curling around her slender neck.

They stared at each other. Their faces were close. So close.

"I _have_ changed my mind about one thing— I'm not in the mood for dinner at the moment," she rasped. Her pupils were blown wide and the aquamarine pendants glittered alongside the tops of her cheeks. "Let's go to your place."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [Ansiv Garmuth](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Ansiv_Garmuth).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> [Rey's earrings](https://www.bucherer.com/fr/fr/produit/bucherer-fine-jewellery-pendatif-or-rose-peekaboo=1299-728-1).


	6. l'été, part vi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you reyloswifts for [the lovely playlist](https://twitter.com/reyloswifts/status/1262608948022120448?s=21), and everyone else for the comments that never fail to make my day!
> 
> **Please be advised that the dom/sub and daddy kink tags begin to take effect in this chapter. This is my first time writing these themes, so I can't guarantee that they will be handled well or with the nuance that some of you might require in order to read a fic like this. If there is _anything at all_ about this dynamic that squicks or triggers you, I would highly recommend that you stop reading. Take care of yourself, first and foremost!**

Ben's heart pounded a fitful rhythm within his chest as Mitaka set the sedan on a course for The Grand Oradin. After he'd issued the requisite instructions to the chauffeur, his hand had fallen from Rey's neck and back into his lap and now he didn't know what to do with it, his fingers curling and uncurling spasmodically. He propped his other arm on the inside of the car door and tucked a fist under his chin as he stared out the window, painfully aware of the nearness of the woman sitting next to him.

Paris bustled with crowds of tourists in the fading daylight. As the car inched forward at a moderate pace through the last of the evening traffic, Ben saw them posing for photos, admiring buildings, poring over maps and guidebooks, and tentatively perusing menus at sidewalk eateries— all while being jostled by disgruntled-looking locals on their way home from work or out running errands. He felt a stab of commiseration for the latter group; New York got just as bad in the summertime, although the French seemed to have an even better handle on the art of bitchface.

Gradually, the swarms thinned out and the streets grew quieter as the Aston Martin made the turn into a neighborhood dominated by stylish boutiques, antique galleries, stone apartments built in the nineteenth-century Haussmann style, and mansion houses set behind private courtyards. Rey turned to gape at Ben, breaking the charged silence. "You live _here?"_

"Yes. Why?"

"Nothing." Rey slumped against the leather backrest. "It's just— it's _bonne adresse,_ that's all."

"Would it make you feel better or worse to know that I'm staying at a hotel?" Ben queried.

Rey blinked, and for a second looked like she was about to faint. She said nothing as they got out of the car and walked into The Oradin's lobby with its gleaming marble floors, walls adorned with Renaissance-era paintings, and the enormous crystal chandelier that dangled from a mirrored ceiling. She continued to not breathe a word while they rode the elevator up to the penthouse, and then the doors were sliding open and her eyes were all but bugging out of their sockets as she slowly stepped into the pale, vast space, her black heels clicking on maple, her head swiveling to take it all in.

Ben was enjoying this far more than he should have. He liked the wonder on her face, how it softened the lipsticked slash of deep red that was her mouth. He liked how she looked standing in the middle of his pristine suit in her white dress, her aquamarine-and-diamond earrings sparkling in the light of the dying sun. Her gaze wandered over the lush carpets, the streamlined furniture, the state-of-the-art entertainment system, the panoramic view of the city beyond the glass walls— and, finally, it drifted back to him. And stayed.

Ben expected her to offer pretty-sounding compliments or to start estimating how much staying here must cost per day. Hell, he was even bracing himself to be taken to task for his ostentatious lifestyle. These formed the bulk of the reactions he had encountered over the years whenever people saw proof of the luxuries that First Order executives enjoyed.

"Do you like living here?" Rey asked.

He blinked. He certainly hadn't been prepared for _that._ "I've never really thought about it," he said as he went over to the kitchen and retrieved a couple of wineglasses from the shelf, setting them down on the marble counter top. "It's just where I go at the end of the day."

"Shouldn't a home be more than that, though?"

"It's a hotel suite. I'm happy to sacrifice homeyness in favor of convenience." He opened the minibar and subjected its contents to a critical gaze. "Red, white, or bubbly?"

"Up to you," came her soft reply.

After a few moments of careful deliberation, he selected a sweet, dark sherry from Andalusia. He turned to present her with the bottle—

— and it almost slipped from his grasp.

Her white dress was neatly folded over the back of the same armchair that now held her bag, along with her bra and panties. Her shoes lay haphazardly on the floor, as if she'd kicked them off. She was standing before him utterly, _gloriously_ naked, save for the gems that dangled from her pretty earlobes.

Ben hadn't seen a flesh-and-blood woman in the nude in over a year; surely he could be forgiven for every single one of his brain cells deciding to take a hike. Rey was sun-kissed by summer and long-limbed, her small and perky breasts capped by dusky nipples that begged to be sucked on, the slight curves of her trim waist flaring out into lean, athletic hips. There wasn't a trace of hair on the gentle triangle beneath her flat abdomen, which wasn't something Ben had ever consciously thought he'd be into but, _God,_ it did _something_ to him to see her so bare and smooth. Her legs were those of a runner's, slender yet sinewy, all slim thighs and shapely calves, ending in perfectly formed toes that wiggled invitingly on the cream-colored carpet.

"Shit," he muttered, like the worldly, intelligent businessman that he was. "I— uh— I don't have any condoms."

_Smooth,_ jeered his contemptuous inner voice.

"I'm on the pill and I'm clean. I don't mind if you don't."

"I don't," he hurried to say. "And I'm clean, too."

"Well, then—" Rey smiled— "aren't you going to pour me a drink?"

Tearing his eyes away from her was the hardest thing that Ben had ever had to do in thirty-three years of existence, but he somehow managed for long enough to open the bottle and dispense a generous amount of sherry into the two waiting glasses. He held one out to her and watched as she approached him, her lithe body glossed by reddish gold beams of setting sun and her hips swaying with each graceful step. Holy _fuck,_ she was gorgeous, everything he'd ever wanted, and his already half-erect cock twitched as their fingers brushed when she took the glass from him, her other hand idly playing with the blue Tom Ford silk necktie that he'd chosen to wear today to complement his navy Armani suit.

_"Sant_ _é,"_ Rey whispered, still smiling in that mysterious, darkly alluring manner that could have been designed for no purpose other than to drive him crazy.

They clinked their glasses together, and Rey took a dainty sip while Ben drained his in one large gulp. She laughed, her hazel eyes shining over a rim of Waterford crystal, and he could no longer stop himself from bending down to slant his mouth over hers, one hand on the small of her back pressing her flush against him. She tasted like the sherry's notes of dried figs and molasses, as warm and as rich as honey, and she gave contented little purring sighs as his tongue continued to explore and to taste.

Ben's hand _wandered._ It drifted up from the small of Rey's back to the ladder of her spine and traced the contours of her shoulder-blades before descending once more, luxuriating in the feel of her beneath his fingertips, mapping her out as if she were a new land where everything bloomed like a promise. He was so caught up in her that he didn't even realize that he was already palming her ass until her sighs tapered off into a moan— only then did he become fully aware of the plump cheek that he was caressing. Only then did he give it a squeeze, deepening the kiss, swallowing the sounds that she made as she arched against him, her bare breasts rubbing against his crisp white shirtfront.

There was something _exhilarating_ about still being in his suit while kissing a beautiful woman who wore not a single scrap of clothing. It was a rush to the head, a feast for the senses. By the time Rey pulled away to lead him to an armchair by the window, Ben could barely walk from how hard he was.

It didn't help matters that she was pulling him by his tie, holding her drink in her other hand. He stumbled forward, trying not to drop his own empty glass, happily losing the battle to refrain from staring at her derrière. God, it was peachy. He wanted to _spank_ it. He wondered if she would let him, one day.

"This is a nice view," she remarked, glancing out the window-walls after she'd coaxed him into the armchair so that she stood between his spread legs, towering over him.

"It really is," he fervently agreed, his hawk-like gaze glued to her breasts.

She _giggled._ The sound went down sweeter than the Spanish wine. And speaking of which...

"I'll trade you." Rey carefully pried the empty glass from Ben's hand and set it down on the side table after replacing it with her own that was still half-full. She had to bend in order to do so, and her breasts swayed tantalizingly within reach. He was powerless to the siren song, unable to stop himself from reaching out and tweaking one pert nipple between thumb and forefinger. It pebbled immediately at his touch and she shuddered, her hazel eyes darkening.

"Ben— finish your sherry—"

He raised an eyebrow at her even as his fingers continued their teasing. "Are you trying to get me drunk, Rey?"

"I just want you to sit back and relax." She gently batted his hand away and flashed him an irreverent grin. "So I can thank you properly for my earrings."

And, with that, she dropped down on her knees before him.

His breath hitched in his throat. "You don't have to—"

"I _know_ I don't have to." She unbuckled his belt. "That's why I want to do it. Because you don't make me feel like I have to. And because—" She peered up at him through sooty lashes— "because I've kind of been fantasizing about this since the night we met." Her nimble fingers popped the button on his fly and wasted no time in splaying along the bulge that tented out from beneath, fondling him through the barrier of Italian silk and custom-made Turnbull & Asser slim-fit boxers. "I've lost count of how many times I've put a dildo in my mouth and pretended it was you," she murmured, her slow, sensual strokes matching the rhythm of her husky words. "How many times I've fucked myself with my fingers while my lips stretched around a dildo that I imagined was your cock."

Ben was dead. He had died and gone to heaven. That had to be it. There was simply no other possible explanation for Rey— for this _angel—_ bursting into his life. He _certainly_ hadn't done anything to deserve her.

Desperate to keep occupied enough that he would be prevented from cumming in his pants like a virginal high-schooler, he gulped down a hearty swig of sherry. It warmed him all the way to the tips of his toes, making his head spin at the same time that his willpower took another severe beating as Rey leaned forward and pulled down his zipper.

With her teeth.

Pearly whites biting into cold metal. Soft red lips gliding down the outline of his erection.

"Where—" His voice came out embarrassingly cracked. He tried again. "Where the hell did you learn _that?"_

"I saw it on PornHub once." She dimpled up at him. "I've always wanted to give it a shot."

Ben's eyes crinkled at the corners as he shot her a smile that felt too fond, given the circumstances. "Far be it from me to discourage an enterprising spirit."

He had yet to recover— in all honesty, he doubted he ever would— when her clever hands dove in and worked him free, one fist wrapping around the base of his shaft without preamble. The sight of her slim fingers struggling to encircle him was almost too much to bear. He was so hard that it _hurt,_ a bead of precum already leaking from his tip, and for several long moments Rey simply _stared,_ uncertainty flickering across her features.

"Well," she finally huffed, sounding put out, "I don't know _how_ this is going to fit."

Her prim tone and grumpy expression were at such odds with the fact that she was kneeling stark naked between his legs that Ben was torn between laughter and a fresh surge of arousal. However, all trace of the former was quick to disappear when the flat of Rey's pink tongue darted out to lick a broad stripe up his length, all the way from base to tip.

She repeated this a few more times, flicking her tongue over his glans at the end of each upstroke, and the universe _blurred._

Although instinct demanded that Ben close his eyes and allow himself to savor the feeling, he kept them open, reluctant to look away, wanting to sear the image of Rey's little tongue gliding along his flushed skin into his memory. And, in the end, he was glad that he _hadn't_ closed his eyes, because it was nothing short of a religious experience when her hazel gaze met his as she slipped the tip of his cock into her mouth—

— and began to _suck—_

"Jesus." Ben drank what remained of the sherry, then plunked the empty glass down on the side table with less caution than would have been wise. His fingers sank into Rey's loose chestnut hair. "That's it, sweetheart."

Her lashes fluttered at his praise. She moaned around him and the vibrations rippled through his nerve endings, pushing him dangerously close to the edge. Her new earrings swayed and shimmered and caught the light as her head bobbed on his cock, gradually taking him deeper and deeper, her fist wrapped firmly around the parts of him that her mouth couldn't reach. Each stroke of her tongue along the underside of his shaft was like a spark through the currents of her sucking and swallowing motions, everything melting together into endless waves of pleasure, and he knew that he wasn't going to survive this, there was just no way to make it out of this in one piece—

"Rey. Wait," he gritted out.

Perhaps because he was a stupid man.

She stopped, blinking up at him with tawny eyes that were clear and luminous in the sunset, her red lips stretched halfway down his length. God. A picture-perfect memory, if ever there was one.

"Get up here," he told her in a gravelly voice, his inhibitions lowered by alcohol, his mind a haze of lust. "Want to cum in your pussy."

Ben had never been overly assertive during sex. None of his former partners had particularly cared for being ordered around; Bazine had humored him on occasion, but that had quickly lost its appeal because the _point_ was that the other person would enjoy it, too. With Rey, though, he couldn't help himself. It was those wide eyes of hers. It was the way she was on her knees. It was the fact of him being dressed while she was not.

And it was her being a great deal younger. That last part was mortifying to admit, but it thrilled him. It gave him the unsettling yet addictive sensation that he was doing something he shouldn't.

Rey slowly eased her mouth off of his cock. His resolve not to cum until he was inside her was once more put to the test by the thin string of spit connecting her swollen bottom lip to his tip, soon broken when she stood up.

"Turn around."

The words came out more brusquely than he'd intended, and the lingering shreds of his sanity waited for her to slap him. But, instead, she lowered her gaze demurely and did as she was bid, presenting him with that exquisite backside. He took a moment to admire it, his fist lazily tugging on his erection as it twitched when he noticed that she had freckles scattered all over her buttocks, and then—

— she _wiggled_ her ass at him, in a manner too exaggerated to be seductive, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter—

He bit back what threatened to be a goofy smile. "You're such a brat."

"I know," she sighed, a parody of dismay. "It's my fatal flaw— _Ben!"_

Rey shrieked his name in delighted surprise as he hauled her into his lap. He pressed his lips to the slope of her neck the way he'd longed to earlier in the car, kissing and nibbling at the delicate skin as he palmed her breasts while his other hand slid between her legs. She leaned back against him, blindly clutching at the sleeves of his suit jacket, her bare and slender form undulating as he skated two fingers along her petal-soft entrance.

"You're so goddamn wet," he rumbled, more out of awe and disbelief than anything else, but she nodded with an enthusiasm that made it clear he'd better keep talking, her hips bucking insistently against his hand. "Can't believe you got this wet from sucking me off— you _dirty_ girl—"

He plunged a finger inside her at the same time that he gave her left nipple a sharp pinch. She threw her head back in a hoarse shout, offering the elegant column of her throat for him to nip at as he added another finger, thrusting with a measured rhythm. She was so small compared to him that she fit right in the palm of his hand, the position making it easy for him to curl his thumb against her clit.

Her entire body spasmed when he did so. "Fuck," Rey breathed, "I'm going to cum—"

"Not until you sit on my cock," he growled in her ear.

Distantly, he imagined his normal self gawking at him in bewilderment, wondering who the hell this person who looked exactly like him was.

Rey whined as Ben pulled his hand away, slicking fingers that were smeared with her arousal all over his shaft. He was bigger than average and more lubrication wouldn't be a bad thing, especially when she'd been so tight around his fingers. She was trembling with anticipation as he clamped his hands on her hips, the signal for her to scoot forward slightly, lifting up her ass until the head of his cock notched into the entrance of her soaked cunt.

"It's— it's not going to fit," she panted.

Somehow, she knew just what to say to get him going.

Somehow, the markedly higher pitch of her voice made him want nothing more than to prove her wrong.

He pulled her down by the hips, sheathing himself inside her in one swift stroke. She cried out, a sound that was barely audible through the primal red haze that descended over him as her inner walls _squeezed._

"See?" he hissed, maneuvering her hips so that she rocked against him. "It fits."

"Please be gentle," Rey whimpered. Although— the illusion of helplessness was rather ruined by the fact that she'd brought her hand to the front and was lightly playing with her clit as her toes curled atop the floor. "You're splitting me in two."

"You're going to give me a fucking heart attack," Ben grumbled as he gently bounced her up and down.

Rey shot him a smirk over one deliciously freckled shoulder. "I'd settle for a fucking."

"Bad pun." He picked up the pace. "Very bad."

She moaned, too delirious for words now, balancing her hands on his knees as she thrust back against him as best as she could. He wasn't going to last very long with her legs pressed together like this, causing her already too-small cunt to grip him like a vise. He had to make sure she was taken care of first.

"Keep playing with that pretty clit," he rasped. "Don't stop until you cum on my cock." She hurriedly complied, her fingertips kneading the tiny bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs. She was close, but so was he. It was a race against time.

Ben would never have made CEO if he didn't perform best under pressure.

"You look beautiful like this." He lifted her up and slammed her back down as she yelped, the muscles of his arms straining against his sleeves. "Fucked open on my lap. Dripping all over my suit. Wearing only the earrings I gave you. This was what you were hoping for when you stripped as soon as you walked in through the door, wasn't it?" She nodded, her wrist all but blurring from how earnestly she was stimulating her clit. He narrowed his eyes, gripping her hips almost hard enough to bruise. "I should keep you like this, then," he ground out, his voice breaking at the edges. He no longer knew what he was saying, everything was as dark and as rich as blood, the lower half of his body tightening as pleasure built and built. "Should _forbid_ you from wearing clothes whenever you're here— keep you naked all the time so I can shove my cock into you whenever I feel like it—"

_"Yes,"_ Rey cried amidst the wounded little noises that were clawing their way out of her throat. "That's what I want— oh, God, I'm going to _cum,_ you're going to make me cum, d—"

She broke off, clapping a hand over her mouth. Before he could even begin to wonder what it was she'd been about to say, she was writhing against him in the throes of an unstoppable orgasm, the fluttering of her inner walls dragging him down with her, down over the edge, the corners of his vision whiting out and his mind blanking as he spilled inside her, the sun disappearing behind the horizon, leaving only streaks of red and gold like afterglow.

🎀💎🎀

It felt like an eternity passed before Ben could muster the strength to move. And, even then, he was barely able to tuck his spent cock into his trousers before he collapsed against the backrest once more, exhaustion overtaking him.

Rey was curled up on his lap, her bare legs dangling off the chair's arm as she buried her face in his shirtfront. She seemed embarrassed about something— and, come to think of it, so was he. He couldn't _believe_ the things he'd said to her.

He opened his mouth to apologize— or to ask her if she wanted him to tone it down next time— to ask her if there would even _be_ a next time— but he was interrupted by the sound of a growling stomach.

Rey lifted her head from his chest, peering up at him with a fetching shyness. "I'd like that dinner now, please."

Ben gave a hoarse chuckle, his eyes at half-mast, every inch of his being drowsy and content. "I'll call room service."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This take on the naked woman/clothed man trope is dedicated to [sofondabooks](https://twitter.com/sofondabooks), who has been such a huge help in brainstorming ideas for this story! Love you, Tita Des! ❤️


	7. l'automne, part i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the lovely feedback on the last chapter! I really enjoyed reading them and I hope you guys will enjoy this update, too!
> 
> **Content warning: There will be discussion of a character dying in the Vietnam War and another character dying in childbirth.**

Ben didn't see Rey for most of August. They went out to dinner and had amazing sex two more times before he flew to Berlin, representing Snoke at a conference for industry leaders that lasted an entire week. Then it was off to the startup hubs of Tallinn, Madrid, and Helsinki to woo prospective clients. Upon his return to France, he had only six days to finalize the contract with Venamis and Guile, after which he flew to New York to report to Snoke on how the European branch was faring. The old man was paranoid about corporate espionage and insisted on sensitive information being relayed to him in person.

The end result of this frantic schedule was that, by the time Ben had settled back in Paris and gotten some breathing room, it was already the second week of September. The tourist crowds had thinned out somewhat and the air had taken on the slightest of chills.

And he couldn't stop thinking about Rey.

Their two trysts at the beginning of August had followed the pattern of that first night. She stripped as soon as they entered his penthouse and blew him before they fucked, wearing only her aquamarine-and-diamond earrings. Afterwards, he ordered room service— she was constantly hungry, it seemed— and, when she was done eating, he sent her home in the Aston Martin. She always kissed him goodbye before taking the elevator down to the lobby to meet Mitaka on her own, and he always fought the temptation to ask her to stay the night.

He hadn't texted her at all while he was away— which, he supposed, was some kind of victory in itself, considering that the memories of her hot little mouth, her perfect ass, and her cute, bouncy breasts had driven him crazy whenever he failed to be careful to not let his mind stray from trade policies and legalese. She hadn't texted him, either, and he knew it was unfair to be miffed about that— but he _was._ Just a little. There were several instances when he'd stared at his phone as he lay in bed in a lonely hotel room in a city without an Eiffel Tower that was both eyesore and beloved, his thumb hovering on her name in his contacts list for several long moments before he finally placed the device on the nightstand and closed his eyes to herald a fitful slumber.

Now he was back in his penthouse at The Oradin, slouched down on the couch in front of the massive flatscreen that he hadn't bothered to switch on, his luggage still by the elevator doors, still unpacked. It was ten in the evening on a Friday— too late to ask Rey to come over, but perhaps she was still awake and they could...

Could _what?_ Talk? That wasn't part of the arrangement. Ben shook his head. He was the one who had set these boundaries and it would reflect poorly on him if he stopped enforcing them just because he hadn't seen her in weeks. But perhaps he could set something up for tomorrow, if she was free.

He rang her before doubt could get the best of him.

"Hey." Rey's voice was low and slightly drowsy in Ben's ear. He tried to ignore the way it made his heart skip a beat.

"Hi," he mumbled. "Sorry— were you asleep?"

"Just drifting off, but it's all right. Are you back from— Finland, was it?"

"New York, actually." The last time he saw her, he'd told her about the first half of his August schedule, but the brief sojourn in Paris and the trip to the United States hadn't been on his calendar yet. "I flew back here from Helsinki a couple of weeks ago, but I only had six days before I needed to go take care of something at the head office."

"Oh."

She fell silent and so did he, and why did he get the strange sensation that he'd done something wrong, that he'd fallen short somehow? The faintest semblance of accusation crackled in with the static.

It was soon broken by what sounded like a door bursting open on Rey's end, followed by a fair amount of screaming from multiple sources. Ben went cold as dozens of scenarios flickered through his mind, each one more horrible than the last— but, no, he heard her laughing, and then saying something to someone that made the other person scream again, sounding gradually farther and farther away until the door clicked shut and everything was quiet once more.

"Sorry." When Rey came back to the phone, she was a little breathless, her tone still ringing with mirth. "My flatmates are having a horror movie marathon in the den. Jannah just tried to run in and hide under her bed despite their pact to see everything through until the bitter end, and I obviously couldn't let her do that."

"Obviously," Ben echoed. "What did you say to her?"

"That, yeah, she'd be safe from the ax murderer on the telly if she hid under her bed, but who's going to protect her from the child ghost who lives there?"

Ben shivered despite himself and turned on the lamp on the end table. "Stephen King would be proud."

"What's your favorite King novel?" she shot back.

"Er— _'Salem's Lot?"_

He felt her surprise over the phone. "The correct answer is _Pet Sematary,"_ she finally said, "but _'Salem's Lot_ is acceptable. At least you didn't say _The Shining."_

"Have I passed some sort of test?" Ben queried.

"With flying colors," she replied.

An inordinately pleased grin tugged at the corners of his lips. "I want to see you tomorrow. Is there a restaurant you've been wanting to try?"

It hadn't taken him very long to figure out that food was the way to her heart. He was already planning to instruct his secretary to make dinner reservations at whichever place Rey named when she said, "There's this new bistro in Montmartre that's supposed to be really good, but they're only open for lunch. If that's okay...?"

Ben felt a little uneasy. They hadn't done lunch yet. Although it was more casual than dinner, it carried with it the implicit expectation that there would be more time spent together. Neither party could make the excuse that it was getting late for another several hours.

"Lunch is fine," he heard himself tell Rey. "I'll pick you up at around eleven-thirty, then?"

"Yeah." She seemed relieved. "Sounds good."

She told him the name of the restaurant and they said their goodbyes and hung up. Ben texted Rumitar to make the necessary reservations and then placed his phone on the coffee table, looking around the suite as he did so. The space was far larger and emptier all of a sudden, but he was quick to shush the inner voice that told him it was because he missed Rey. The sex was really good, and he was eager for more after almost a month of going without. That was it.

It _had_ to be.

Even so, memories of her were all over the place. Hell, two days before he left for Berlin, they'd had sex on this very couch that he was sitting on. After she'd covered his bare chest in love bites, he'd had her on her back, her legs hooked over his shoulders, a position that had caused her to grip him in even more of a vise than usual. And a few days before _that,_ he'd had her in that same armchair by the windows, facing him so that he could suck on her nipples while she rode his lap.

Although she'd gasped and moaned at all the appropriate moments, she had yet to be as mouthy as she'd been during their first time. It was as though she was holding something back, something that had started to blossom in the light of the July sunset but had been scared into hiding for some reason. The longer Ben sat there in his silent penthouse, surrounded by the glass-veiled Parisian skyline, the more determined he became to coax it to the forefront once more.

🎀💎🎀

Rey was all smiles as she clambered into the backseat of the Aston Martin the next day. He couldn't help but press a quick kiss to the dimple at the corner of her mouth in greeting, her familiar fruity-floral, spice-tinged perfume having the same effect as a warm bath would on his jet-lagged soul.

Her smile had widened by the time they broke apart. It was only his chauffeur's presence that stopped Ben from sticking his tongue down her throat and feeling her up like a randy teenager. She looked amazing in her skintight green dress, black leather jacket, and high-heeled ankle boots, her hair piled up in a messy bun.

He was about to compliment her when she asked, scrunching her nose up at him, "Do you ever _not_ wear suits?"

"I came from the office," he said. "We _do_ have a dress code at First Order Global."

Rey looked aghast. "Even on Saturdays?"

"Yes."

"That's terrible," she declared firmly. "Why were you working on a Saturday in the first place?"

"There were a few urgent documents that I had to review and sign."

"And your signature is less valid when you're not wearing—" Her hazel eyes flickered over him— "Dolce & Gabbana?"

"Brioni," he corrected with a reluctant half-smile. "But, yeah, there's a law. If you sign something without a tie on, it's automatically null and void."

Rey snorted. She reached over and brushed stray specks of lint from the upper sleeve of his bespoke gray jacket. "You work too much, Ben."

How he longed to take her hand in his and lace their fingers together. How he longed to dot the inside of her wrist with kisses. But that would be too intimate, surely. This was not that kind of relationship.

It wasn't a relationship at all.

Eventually, Rey's hand fell back to her side. There was an air of surrender to the movement, and the silence that came rolling in between them was tense and unsure.

Ben frantically cast about for something to say. His gaze landed on her boots. "I like your shoes."

_Amazing,_ said his wry inner voice. _Why not just throw yourself out of this moving vehicle while you're at it— it would be less painful for everyone involved—_

Rey bit her lip, shooting him a sideways glance through her lashes. "I put them on the credit card you gave me," she said in a tone that was only a little louder than a whisper— she obviously didn't want Mitaka to overhear. "I hope that's all right, they were forty percent off at Galeries Lafayette and I wouldn't have found a deal that good until the next _soldes—"_

"Rey." She looked so _guilty_ that he placed his hand on her thigh without thinking, a gesture meant to calm. "That's _your_ credit card. You can buy anything you want with it. I won't begrudge you a single cent."

She still didn't look convinced, but she nodded. He gave her thigh a reassuring squeeze and—

— and he didn't let go. Somehow, he couldn't bring his muscles to perform the simple action of undoing their hold on her. Instead, he caressed the material of her green dress lightly, rucking it up so that his fingers slid alongside the bare skin underneath.

Rey's eyes had gone as wide as saucers. The effect that _that_ had on him was... unnervingly potent, as was the way she spread her legs further apart to grant him more access. Ben's hand crept a little higher until the tips of his fingers grazed the edge of a triangle of the finest, most delicate silk, and blood began to pound in his ears.

The car rolled to a stop as Mitaka pulled up outside their destination, and whatever expression was on Ben's face made Rey burst into peals of unrestrained laughter.

"Come along, monsieur," she teased, grabbing his hand and hauling him out of the Aston Martin after Mitaka had opened the door on her side.

Ben wanted to protest that this wasn't how it should be— that they shouldn't hold hands because that would make this mean something. But he was powerless in her thrall, rendered mute and unresisting as she sashayed ahead of him and he realized that her dress was very short and it clung to her shapely ass like second skin.

They walked into the restaurant with their fingers still intertwined, and Rey didn't let go until the waiter had shown them to their table.

The place was called Bistro de Lothal, and it was... _exactly_ that. It couldn't have been any more of a traditional French bistro if its interior designer had furnished it according to the general consensus on what a bistro was, gleaned from the collective imagination of the entire human race via mind-scanning satellite. The lights were turned down low, the floors were tiled black and white, and the walls were peppered with vintage posters; nestled at the heart of the whole operation was a bar made of galvanized steel, and above it were blackboards on which the day's menu had been written in elegant cursive.

It was crowded, too. There wasn't a single unoccupied table, and the queue outside stretched around the block.

"All the foodies have been swarming this joint ever since it opened," Rey said. "I'm a bit surprised you were able to snag a reservation, honestly."

"My secretary never takes no for an answer," Ben told her. "That, or he entered into some kind of unholy blood pact with a lord of hell."

It was the kind of remark that would have earned him an odd look from Bazine— or anyone he'd ever dated, for that matter. He regretted it immediately.

But Rey leaned forward, a conspiratorial twinkle in her eye. "Do you think there's a demon in charge of making sure you get reservations, then? I mean, there's a patron saint for everything these days, so why not a patron demon, yeah?"

"First Stephen King novels and now demonology," Ben grumbled. "We're just cursing ourselves at this point."

The waiter returned with a carafe of water that he poured into two glasses and, in the absence of a menu, Rey skillfully took over the job of ordering while Ben listened and tried his best to not get turned on. He'd thought himself immune from the cultural construct that French was sexy by default, but it really _was_ when it was Rey speaking it. And the way she turned back to him and effortlessly switched to English without missing a beat after the waiter left— God, she was so cool.

"I didn't have you pegged for the superstitious type."

It took him a while to remember what they'd been talking about. He gave a wry chuckle. "I'm not. Not really. But I grew up around what, in hindsight, was probably an _unhealthy_ amount of Catholicism, given that my grandfather is Puerto Rican and my grandmother is Filipino, so—"

"Sorry?" Rey blinked. "How's that?"

"My mom was adopted," Ben explained. "It's a really long story."

Rey settled back in her chair. "We've got time."

He stared at his glass of water. He'd never told anyone about this, not even Bazine— although, granted, as a New York native, Bazine already knew the overarching shape of it and she'd brought it up a few times. He'd always brushed off such conversations; it was too private, and it felt _wrong,_ somehow, like he had no right to this history given that he hadn't spoken to his family in years.

But something about Rey made Ben want to tell her everything.

"My biological grandfather was in the Air Force. He flew a Douglas A-1 Skyraider in Vietnam and he was shot down over Bien Hoa in 1965," he carefully explained. "A few months later, his wife died from complications during childbirth. Not a lot of people knew that they'd gotten married before he was deployed— she was serving as the representative for New York's twelfth congressional district and he was her former bodyguard, so it was a bit of a scandal. Their twin children were adopted separately— my mother by another congresswoman, my uncle by their father's stepbrother."

"This is more convoluted than _Days of Our Lives,"_ Rey complained, all the while looking utterly fascinated.

Ben raised at an eyebrow at her. "How the hell do you even know what that is?"

"Listen, it's oddly addictive, which is a feat in itself seeing as they're on, like, their _hundredth_ season," Rey told him serenely. He shook his head at her and she wrinkled her nose at him before circling back to the original topic. "So things must have been interesting while you were growing up."

"They were," Ben hesitantly conceded. He didn't like looking back on his younger years. He wasn't that naive boy anymore. "What about you?"

"Well, there were no politics," she gamely replied. "There was a smidgen of Catholicism because of my mum but, other than that, I had a perfectly boring, average childhood."

"Nothing about you is boring or average."

He said it without meaning to. He said it in such a hushed and fervent tone that it was embarrassing.

But Rey gave him no cause to be embarrassed. Bemusement flickered over her delicate features and then she flashed a small, tentative smile. It occurred to him that she wasn't used to compliments, which was a crime when she looked like _that,_ when she was wickedly smart, when her presence was blindingly radiant.

The first course arrived in the form of a salad constructed from bitter endives and salty pork belly topped by a gloriously soft poached egg. This was followed by _steak-frites_ — a pan-fried rib eye in a reduction sauce served alongside a veritable mountain of thin, crispy potato slivers. Everything was hearty and surprisingly delicious; even the house red went down like a dream. Coupled with the fact that it was so easy to talk to Rey— and how animated she was when she spoke, especially about some of the more eccentric professors she'd been saddled with now that school had started back up— it didn't take long for this to turn out to be the best lunch that Ben could ever remember having.

She fell into a more sober mood by the end of the meal. "I'm sorry you never got to meet your biological grandparents, though," she said while they waited for the check to come. "And I'm sorry about what happened to them. They must have been so brave."

"I think they were," Ben said quietly. Breha Organa had spent many an hour regaling him with tales of her friend Padmé Amidala and of how hard she had worked to make life better for her constituents. She was one of the representatives who had fiercely opposed the Vietnam War. Anakin Skywalker hadn't waited for the draft; he'd gone and enlisted, and he'd become just another statistic that no one was really sure what for in the end. But Ben believed that there was something to be said for all those who'd been young during those times and who'd looked at the world and tried to change it.

Rey reached across the table and placed her hand over his, squeezing gently. He was surprised by how much he didn't want to ever let go.

And, later, when they were standing on the sidewalk and she asked him if he wanted to walk around Montmartre for a bit instead of going to his place right away, he was even more surprised when he said yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [Bistro De Lothal](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Bistro_De_Lothal).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> _Les soldes_ are the annual summer and winter sales in Paris.


	8. l'automne, part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I wrote most of this during a time when I would have been back in my beloved Paris if not for the COVID-19 travel restrictions. So if parts of this chapter sound overly wistful, I apologize xD Thank you to 2ndSWRD for [the gorgeous art](https://twitter.com/2ndswrd/status/1276617498922713088?s=21) and [qdamdriver](https://twitter.com/qdamdriver/status/1272688988835340288?s=21) for the lovely moodboard!

With its endless cobbled lanes, narrow ivy-clad buildings crammed closely together, and some intangible, insular feeling that lingered in the air, Montmartre felt more like a separate village than a neighborhood within the city itself. Ben mentioned as much to Rey and she beamed at him with pride, as if he were her student who'd just solved an especially difficult problem in class.

"That's because it only became part of Paris in 1860. It was its own town until Napoleon III did his renovations— knocking down medieval districts, installing wide boulevards, and annexing the surrounding villages, " she told him as they walked. "The people weren't too happy about that, but there was nothing they could do— I mean, the man _was_ Emperor. After the Franco-Prussian war that deposed him, though, the _Montmartrois_ rebelled and created their own government— _La Commune—_ that was independent from the rest of Paris for a couple of months."

"When did the artists start coming in?" Ben asked, and— with that one question— summing up all that he knew about Montmartre.

"The _Belle_ _É_ _poque._ 1872 to 1914," Rey said. "The rents were low and the atmosphere was free-spirited and congenial, so the bohemians flocked here." She grabbed his arm. "And if it's art you want..."

She took him to a museum. If someone had asked Ben as recently as this morning what his idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon with a pretty girl was, it wouldn't have entailed huffing and puffing up a cobbled hill until they reached an unassuming, brick-roofed seventeenth-century house on the Rue Cortot— but it was what was happening, and he somehow couldn't find it in him to object.

"Auguste Renoir rented a studio here and this was where he painted _Bal du moulin de la Galette,"_ Rey told him, naming one of the Impressionist movement's most celebrated masterpieces. "Other residents at Number 12 included Maximilien Luce, Othon Friesz, Raoul Dufy, Charles Camoin, Émile Bernard, and Suzanne Valadon. And now it's the Musée de Montmartre."

She paid for their tickets before Ben could stop her. When he attempted to protest, she waved him off. "I'm rich now, remember?" she teased, and once more he was struggling to not turn red.

Ben had been to many renowned museums all around the world, each one a triumph of architecture packed with both priceless relics and swarms of tourists. He had seen Michelangelo's _David_ in Florence and Leonardo da Vinci's _Last Supper_ in Milan, the Parthenon frieze at the British Museum, the Temple of Dendur at the Met, Vincent van Gogh's _Sunflowers_ in Amsterdam, the Mask of Tutankhamun in Cairo, and _Las Meninas_ at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. All amidst a backdrop of clicking cameras and tour guide spiels in various languages, all lit up by the awe in hundreds of people's eyes. In stark contrast, the Musée de Montmartre was small and eerily quiet; the only sounds were his and Rey's footsteps, and her sweet voice as she played the role of tour guide with aplomb.

For some reason, he liked this more.

The exhibits focused mostly on bringing to life the history of Montmartre as an artists' haven, as told in lithographs, engravings, letters, photos, _objets d'art,_ and vintage _Le Chat Noir_ posters. There was a reconstruction of Renoir's atelier on the first floor, complete with a paint-spattered desk. There were prints signed by Toulouse-Lautrec, poster boy for the bohemians, and all around there were little touches of Paris' infernal trio— Valadon, Utrillo, and Utter— who had made Number 12 their home.

And there was Monet.

The breath caught in Ben's throat as he recognized that telltale style, that hunger for light and all the ways it could be expressed. There were several of these frames and he soon started to get the suspicion that he was viewing what was quite possibly one of the largest collections of Claude Monet oil paintings in the world.

"Monet was deeply attached to Montmartre," Rey softly explained, watching Ben's face as he looked around. "He spent much of his time sitting in the public square, drawing inspiration from the life of these streets. This place was close to his heart. His last known heir donated all the inherited works to this museum, where they could live on in the neighborhood he had loved."

Rey's words stirred something secret and poignant in Ben. He wondered how it would feel to have somewhere to belong.

He was in a pensive mood when Rey led him out to the garden— Renoir's gardens, a tranquil green space with a lily pond, a terraced courtyard, landscaped borders, and a panoramic view of rolling green hills and the vineyard that produced, according to Rey, "the most expensive bad wine in Paris." The scent of the last summer flowers lingered in the air, embroiled in the slowest of surrenders to the oncoming autumn. Here it was easy to pretend that they were the only ones on the hill, and Rey reminded him of a pretty little emerald butterfly flitting about on the grass as they fell into more breezy conversation, as she pointed out an installation of a swing set identical to what was now immortalized in Renoir's _La balan_ _ç_ _oire._ His hands shoved into his pockets, Ben breathed in the fresh, sweet-smelling air and imagined the artist sitting in this very garden, gliding his brush over canvas.

Rey went over to the swing and— _posed,_ and against Ben's will a broad grin stretched across his face as it hit him that she was reenacting the painting. He took out his phone and snapped a picture of her while she vogued for the camera, her hazel eyes dancing with mischief.

She would have been a perfect muse for the Impressionists, he thought. She attracted daylight to her like a magnet.

After leaving the museum, they walked to the Place du Tertre a few blocks away, where Monet had spent many an afternoon. Here, it was chaos. Surrounded by bustling cafés and bistros, artists had set up their easels on every square inch and were painting and sketching _en plein air_ while hordes of tourists wandered around, some commissioning artworks of them and their group, some browsing the pieces that were already for sale alongside souvenir stalls displaying knockoff sunglasses and felt berets and the ubiquitous _I heart Paris_ coffee mugs. It was noisy and it was colorful and the air was heavy with the buttery fragrance of crepes.

"You're looking a bit disoriented," Rey said with a laugh. "We should have saved that peaceful little museum for last."

"I don't mind," Ben told her, although he minded a _little,_ considering that he was being _jostled_ by the crowd.

She scrunched up her nose and bought him a crepe. They strolled all over the plaza as they ate, watching various artists hard at work making caricatures and watercolors. It wasn't long before some unseen busker— obscured from Ben's view by the masses of people and stalls and easels— started playing, the melancholy guitar notes rising above the chatter of the throng.

_"La lune trop bl_ _ê_ _me pose un diad_ _è_ _me sur tes cheveux roux,"_ a silvery female voice sang. _"La lune trop rousse, de gloire_ _é_ _clabousse ton jupon plein d'trous..."_

"Oh, it's the _Moulin Rouge!_ version," Rey said through a mouthful of crepe. "It's all right, I guess it's really for the tourists more than anything—"

When they left the Place du Tertre, however, he caught her singing along under her breath and it made him smile.

_"The stairways up to la Butte_ _can make the wretched sigh, while windmill wings of the moulin shelter you and I..."_

🎀💎🎀

They took a meandering, circuitous route around the neighborhood. She showed him Place Dalida, a square that was dedicated to Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, the legendary Egyptian-Italian singer who had made Montmartre her home. There was a bronze bust of her underneath a leafy green tree and, as he and Rey stood in front of it to quietly pay their respects, Ben desperately tried not to comment on the fact that there were a couple of spots on the bust that were _very_ shiny, obviously buffed bright by thousands of visitors' hands touching... _them..._ over the years.

But his companion saw right through him. "Urban legend has it that if you rub the bust of Dalida's, er, _bust,_ it'll bring you good luck in love," Rey said with a slight grin.

Then she waited expectantly.

"Rey," Ben finally said, "I'm not going to cop a feel on this poor statue."

"You don't want good luck in love?" She cocked her head at him, and she looked so adorable that he couldn't stop himself from bending down to kiss her.

"Don't need it," he murmured against her lips.

She laughed, clutching at the sleeves of his suit jacket to bring him closer.

From Place Dalida, she took him to a little pink house with green shutters that functioned as a café and had apparently been serving coffee for over a hundred years, Pablo Picasso and Albert Camus numbering among its loyal patrons. Afterwards, they went to see the last two windmills in the 18th arrondissement, both located along a long and winding road known as the Rue Lepic— which was also where Vincent van Gogh had lived for a spell, and Rey was happy to point out the fourth-floor apartment from where the artist had painted several renditions of the Parisian skyline.

Eventually, they made their way back up the hill. In truth, Ben was rather impressed that Rey didn't seem to be having any difficulty navigating the cobblestones in her ankle boots, and he was also _concerned—_ even if the heels were the sensible, squarish sort, surely her feet had to hurt after all this walking.

As it turned out, though, it wasn't her shoes that he should have been worrying about.

They had just begun to climb the steps leading up to the Sacré Cœur— the gleaming white Romano-Byzantine basilica that crowned the summit of Montmartre and was its most famous landmark— when Rey suddenly gave a little cry as that omnipresent over-sized purse of hers fell from her shoulder. Ben reacted quickly, diving to catch it with both hands before it could hit the ground.

They studied the bag and it didn't take long to discover the problem. The fraying strap had finally succumbed to the inevitable, breaking off just above the worn metal clasp.

Rey was the most dismayed that Ben had ever seen her. "I've had this for ten years," she said mournfully. "Bought it at Old Spitalfields Market in London and everything..."

She looked so forlorn as she held up the broken strap of a bag older than the ratified United States-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, standing there in shoes that she'd waited until they were forty percent off to charge to a credit card that she wasn't even the one paying for. Ben couldn't endure it for a second longer.

"I'll call Mitaka." He was already reaching for his phone.

"Why?" Rey asked, her brow knitting in confusion.

"We're going to buy you a new bag," Ben replied.

🎀💎🎀

In the backseat of the Aston Martin, Rey whipped her head to the left to gape at Ben with wide, panicked eyes as the car pulled up outside the Hermès global flagship on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

"Are you _crazy?"_ she hissed through gritted teeth. "I've _heard_ about this place— you need an appointment to even _look_ at the leather stuff—"

"Yes, and we have one," Ben said calmly. Rumitar had worked his magic again, replying to Ben's text with a confirmation in a little under twenty minutes.

"Ben," Rey continued protesting as he ushered her past the queue and into the shop, the security detail instantly stepping aside at the sight of them, "what am I going to do with an Hermès bag, I'd literally be too scared to use it—"

"Think of it like any other investment. And if it gets dirty, we can have it professionally cleaned."

Despite his self-assured tone, Ben had lost his footing somewhat. Bazine had taken these types of shopping sprees in stride— had even come to expect them. What woman in the world would try to dissuade him from gifting her with an Hermès?

And Rey thought _he_ was the crazy one.

The interior of the store was softly lit and done up in a wash of neutral hues, with a flooring of mosaic tiles. It was crowded, but a gorgeous, raven-haired sales attendant who had clearly been waiting fluttered over to them, introducing herself as Jessika and asking them to follow her, _s'il vous plaît._ They ascended the shining staircase and were shown into a small room on the quiet second floor, where Jessika poured glasses of champagne for them as she asked Rey what type of bag she was looking to purchase.

Rey froze on the spot, staring at the sales attendant like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.

Ben took over, pressing a hand to the small of Rey's back. "She would prefer one of your larger sizes. Something in an understated color that can go with any outfit."

"Of course, Monsieur Solo. Please wait here while I check our inventory." Jessika sailed off, leaving a cloud of powdery floral scent in her wake.

"Why don't they just display the bags on the shelves along with everything else?" Rey grumbled out of the corner of her mouth. "Are we buying one of the seven bloody wonders, I don't get it—"

"Careful," Ben teased, "I hear they keep a guillotine out back to execute anyone who dares question them."

Rey snorted. "At least it would be a quick death. A designer guillotine would probably be very good at its job, yeah?"

But she relaxed slightly, leaning closer into his space. After several minutes Jessika returned with three of those orange boxes that were recognizable and coveted all over the world, placing them on the table; opening the largest one carefully, she fished out the contents from delicate folds of snowy white paper and removed the dust bag with something like aplomb.

Ben blinked. He'd been expecting a Kelly or a Caravan tote, but the First Order name must have carried more weight than he'd previously assumed. In the sales attendant's hands was none other than a Birkin, shining beneath the golden lights.

"This arrived just last week. 35cm, scratch-resistant Togo leather with tonal stitching and a velvety pebbled finish," Jessika said proudly. "The shade is Gris Asphalte, our lovely gray-beige that is accented to perfection by the cool, crisp palladium hardware."

Ben turned to Rey. "What do you think?"

"It's— it's beautiful," she stammered, her gaze fixed on the bag as if mesmerized, "but—"

"We'll take it," Ben told Jessika.

There were accessories in the other boxes that the sales attendant had thought Rey might like— a _La Source de Pegase_ Twilly scarf in bright pink and sunny yellow with a smattering of mint green leaves and blues and dark browns, as well as a silver breloque bag charm for Rey's new Birkin.

Ben bought these as well.

"Do you need anything else?" he asked Rey after Jessika left to have their purchases rung up at the counter while they finished their champagne. Rey started shaking her head. "A wallet? A coat?" Ben persisted, not knowing where this was coming from, this need to give her more and more, to give her _everything._ "Maybe some perfume—"

"Ben," Rey interrupted with an embarrassed laugh. "This is enough." She looked torn between frustration and affection, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. "It's enough."

🎀💎🎀

On the drive to his hotel, she transferred her belongings from the old bag to the Birkin. Her phone, her wallet, her coin purse, a portable USB charger, a box of tissues, a sunglasses case, a brush with no less than four hair ties wrapped around the handle, a bottle of Fragonard _Étoile,_ a bottle of hand sanitizer, a powder compact, a packet of gummy bears, a spiral notebook, several ballpens, and a tube of lipstick. Ben could only side-eye her in astonishment. She then attached the breloque charm to the new bag and tied the silk scarf to its handle.

Afterwards, she just sat in silence, looking down at the Birkin on her lap. There was nary a peep from her as they got out of the car and crossed the lobby of The Oradin and entered the elevator. As soon as she walked into his suite, she shrugged out of her jacket, kicked off her boots, placed the handbag on the breakfast bar—

— and pulled Ben into the fiercest, _deepest_ kiss that he'd ever been on the receiving end of.

He was startled, but definitely not in a bad way. He had missed this. During all those lonely nights he'd spent in other cities, both his waking thoughts and his dreams had been filled with her. Rey kissed him like she couldn't get enough, blindly coaxing his hand to her spine so that he could fumble with the zipper of her green dress and then with the clasps of her bra. Once she was down to only her lacy black panties, she rubbed against him almost _frantically,_ her arms looped around his neck, her tongue practically all the way down his _throat._

_Jesus,_ Ben thought in a daze. He was going to buy her ten more Birkins. In every fucking color. He groped her peachy ass to his heart's content, his fingers running over delicate lace and supple flesh as she moaned into his mouth. Between the two of them, they managed to get him out of everything that he was wearing before they fell onto his mattress still tangled up in each other, never letting go.

He figured it was probably high time to break in the bed, anyway.

They kissed and they kissed and they kissed. He savored the feeling of her slim form underneath him, her bare skin pressed to every inch of his. He drank in her every sigh. He thought— in brief, disjointed flickers— of Monet and Montmartre, and of how maybe this was where he could belong. With her, wrapped around her. He'd gotten the sense that she was holding something back the last two times they'd had sex. He didn't want her to do that anymore.

Rey shuddered, her spine arching off of the mattress as Ben slipped a hand between her thighs, stroking her through lace that was more wet than damp. "God," he mumbled, kissing her neck, "you're _soaked."_

"All for you," she hummed as he played with her clit, the tips of two fingers rubbing gently at the scant fabric of her underwear. "I've been wet from— from the moment you bought me that hideously expensive bag—"

Blood pounded in his ears. He sucked bruises along the elegant slope of her neck, his fingers finally shoving aside the gusset of her panties so that they could dip into her wetness as her own hands ran down his back in a thorough, grasping kind of exploration. It was as though she were mapping him out. Learning the shape of him after what had been so long. But, just as his wrist started to move in earnest in a bid to get her off, she stopped him.

"Wait—"

Ben lifted his head from the crook of Rey's neck and looked into her hazel eyes that had smoked over with desire, pupils blown wide.

"Please," she rasped, her voice a needy, strangled thing that went straight to his erection, "please fuck me, d—" She stopped again, caught herself again. Just like she had that first time. She squeezed her eyes shut, and the look that crossed her face was a mixture of humiliation and grief that broke something in him even as he slowly rocked his fingers into her. "Ben," she forced out, "Ben, please, I need— _aaah—"_ Rey jolted as he thumbed at her clit, but she persevered like the trooper that she was— "need you inside me, please, it's been weeks—"

He slipped his fingers out of her and moved away, his heart thudding fitfully within his ribcage as she stared up at him with an open-mouthed expression of purest betrayal.

"Get on all fours," he quietly instructed.

Perhaps there was a part of him that had already figured her out, even though he wasn't willing to admit it to himself just yet.

He'd never seen anyone move so fast to comply with an order. Soon he was presented with the sight of Rey on her hands and knees, the pale light of early autumn casting a silvery gloss over her bare, sun-kissed torso as she peered back at him over one freckled shoulder, biting her lip in anticipation. She squirmed impatiently, the movement causing her lace-clad ass to _wiggle._ His mouth went dry.

He was powerless to resist from sinking his fingers into one shapely cheek as he knelt between her legs, moving the scrap of black lace aside, his other hand aligning his cock with her entrance. Rey was trembling all over, so exquisite and far too good for him.

Ben swore that he saw stars when he drove into her. In this position, she felt even _more_ incredible, which wasn't something he'd considered to still be within the realm of possibility.

"Fuck," he gritted out, his hips snapping against her ass, "you're even tighter this way—"

She whimpered in agreement, dropping onto her elbows, hiding her face in the sheets. The wet slap of skin on skin seemed to echo through the penthouse.

"What a good girl." Ben didn't know where _this_ was coming from, either, but the way Rey clenched around him was the only encouragement he needed to continue. "Thanking me for her new bag like this."

"Yes." Her voice was muffled by the mattress. "It's beautiful, thank you—"

She broke off again. He hunched over her, brushing his lips over the notches of her spine, reaching underneath to palm her breasts until she was whining from the stimulation. There was something building inside him that had nothing to do with his impending climax— it was almost like desperation, this wild yearning to see her undone.

Ben straightened up as best as he could. Fucked into Rey as hard as he could, gripping her by the hips to help slide her up and down his cock. She cried out from the brutal pace, clawing at the sheets. "So— so big," she wheezed. "Splitting me in two—"

"That's right, baby," he murmured. "Have to stretch you out, you're so damn _small."_ The moment was washing over him like a drug, sweeping away all of his hangups until there was nothing left but a dark, primal instinct guided only by every sound that she made and each twitch of her inner walls around him. " _Such_ a good girl, taking me so well— go on and play with that cute little clit while I fuck you into the mattress, sweetheart—"

"Yes, d—" The rest of the sentence hitched in her throat and she pressed her face harder into the sheets, stifling the word that he had begun to suspect she was going to say. He couldn't have that. He'd never needed anything more than to hear her say it. Her hand slid between her thighs and he rammed into her deeper than he ever had before, knocking the breath out of her lungs. He felt her start to spasm around him and he knew it was now or never—

"Cum for me, baby girl," Ben growled. "Cum on this nice, thick cock."

"Yes," Rey sobbed, "yes, daddy, I'm going to cum—"

And she did, with a wail, with a rippling along her inner walls, with a surrender that was so hard-won. And it wasn't long before Ben followed, spilling inside her in what was, quite possibly, rather surprisingly— and maybe just a little bit shamefully—

— the _best_ orgasm of his entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The version of "La complainte de la butte" that I imagined them listening to in the plaza](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nI-SghkU_4).
> 
> [Rey's Birkin](https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2019/hermes-handbags-online/hermes-gris-asphalte-togo-birkin-35cm-palladium) and [her Twilly scarf](https://image1.shopserve.jp/rougeblanc.co.jp/pic-labo/twilly_pegase_rose_evenne.jpg?t=20200612184947). They get special treatment here because of Ben's position and because it's a fanfic, but, in reality, the actual process of acquiring a bag from Hermès FSH is much more convoluted :))


	9. l'automne, part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the wonderful comments, they definitely make my day and keep me writing! And I'm thrilled to announce that this week we have been blessed with a stunning piece from [artisticartery](https://kylorenvevo.tumblr.com/post/623689299512180738/drawing-this-two-always-cheers-me-up-so-thinking)! 😍

She wouldn't meet his eyes.

It wasn't that Ben hadn't expected some shyness on Rey's part after what they'd just done— or, to be more accurate, what they'd said to each other while they were doing it. Hell,  _he_ was embarrassed, too. But it was a pleasantly surprised kind of embarrassment, his musings running along the lines of,  _Huh, I didn't think I'd be into that._ It was the kind of embarrassment that begged to be overcome because the payoff promised to be tenfold.

Nothing in the way Rey was acting suggested that she shared his sentiments, however. She was hanging her head, her gaze fixed on her feet that were clad in an extra pair of the hotel's complementary fuzzy white bedroom slippers. They were smoking out on the balcony, the city spread below them, hazy in the late afternoon sun. Ben had pulled only his underwear and suit trousers back on, and the air of early September contained just the slightest hint of bite against his bare torso. Although she'd assured him that she was fine, he still couldn't help wondering if Rey was cold; aside from the aforementioned slippers that matched his, she wore only his button-down— or  _swam_ in it, more like, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and the hem trailing halfway down her thighs.

It was so fucking  _sexy,_ the sight of her in his shirt. If she hadn't looked as pitiful as she did, hunched in on herself as if she were trying to be as small as possible, he would most likely have been hard again in no time flat.

He watched her put one of his cigarettes to her lips and exhale soft wreaths of silver gently, never looking up. Finally, she said, "If I have to psychoanalyze myself, it's probably because I've had to be independent for as long as I can remember. Mum was sick all my life and Dad is... much the same." She hesitated long enough for him to realize that there was more to this story, but she guarded it carefully and it would take time for her to let it go. "Neither of them were in any condition to look after me, so I had to learn how to do— well, most things. I perfected my scrambled eggs recipe at seven years old."

Rey added this last bit with a hint of dry humor that made Ben want to reach out and touch her, but he wasn't sure if it would be welcome. Instead, he ashed what remained of his cigarette and drew another from the pack. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "I had a roof over my head. It wasn't the worst childhood."

"Still."  _You deserve to be treated like a queen. You deserve the whole universe._

"Thanks." She flashed him a sideways smile from where she was leaning against the railing, one arm folded above it to support her weight. "But, yeah— because of all that, I suppose that I gravitate to the feeling of having someone take care of me. Especially in— in bed." A blush rose to her cheeks and it was the prettiest thing that Ben had ever seen, the flush of her sun-kissed skin framed by tousled chestnut hair and the Parisian skyline. "So when I watch porn or read erotica, it's that kind of stuff I look for. The—" And here the rosiness of her complexion deepened into a veritable  _scarlet—_ "the DDLG stuff," she continued in all but a whisper. "I don't know, it just turns me on faster than anything else, and it makes me cum  _really_ hard."

A sound similar to what a dying animal would make tried to claw its way out of Ben's throat. He bit it back, but it looked like he was going to get that erection, after all. He puffed on his cigarette and silently chastised his dick and racked his brain for the right thing to say.

In the end, he decided that it was best to be honest. "It's not something I ever gave any serious thought to, before. But I'd love to explore more of it. With you, that is."

She raised those beautiful hazel eyes to his, at long last. "Do you mean that?"

"If it's what you want."

Rey took one final drag and then straightened up, stubbing out her cigarette on the bin. "The first and, before today,  _only_ time I ever called someone that in bed, he laughed at me," she admitted in a quiet tone of voice. "That's why I tried so hard to reign it in with you. Obviously, I wasn't very successful."

"Thank God for that, because I liked it," Ben said with a hint of unintended sharpness in his tone. "Incidentally, what's his name and address?"

Rey frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm going to make him pay for laughing at you."

Her frown turned into a reluctant chuckle. He wrapped an arm around her slim shoulders and drew her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Never feel like you can't talk to me about what you want in bed," he mumbled into her hair. "The general rule is that, if it makes you happy, then I'm game. Okay?"

She nodded, a little tentatively. He could tell that she didn't quite believe him just yet— and, Jesus, could he blame her? She'd spent her childhood not being able to depend on anyone. And then that idiot had  _laughed_ at her...

The murderous rage that swept through Ben soon gave way to a steely determination. He extinguished and tossed his cigarette and then took Rey's hand, his mind made up. He would show this gorgeous, intelligent, funny, utterly  _radiant_ woman that she had no reason to be ashamed of anything.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

"I could eat," she admitted.

He smiled. "I'll call room service." It was a familiar refrain by now, but one that he didn't think he'd ever get tired of saying since it was for her. He led her back inside, closing the balcony door behind them, his heart going a mile a minute, flickering through an ocean of endless possibilities.

🎀💎🎀

Rey declared that she was in the mood for something light and sweet, so Ben ordered the dessert sampler and a small bowl of Loire Valley strawberries with fresh cream. Thirty minutes later, he was seated at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee and picking at a slice of black cherry clafoutis and watching her eat everything else across from him. The sleeve of his shirt had slipped down her arm, revealing the curve of an enticingly freckled shoulder. She'd piled her hair into a messy bun to keep it out of the way as she feasted, exposing a slender neck that begged to be marked up with love bites.

Forget the food—  _she_ was the one who looked good enough to eat.

Under his intent gaze, she made short work of forkfuls of opera cake and  _mille-feuille,_ crunched almond  _dacquoise_ between her teeth, and licked chocolate mousse off of a spoon, her eyes fluttering shut in pleasure with each mouthful. It wasn't even that there was anything overtly suggestive in her movements; it was the fact that she was enjoying herself, plain and simple, that made the beginnings of arousal pool in his abdomen. But of course he couldn't ignore those pink lips dotted with sugary crumbs, or that clever little tongue poking out to swirl and taste. An idea struck him, horny bastard that he was, but he waited until she'd finished off the cakes and the mousse and was about to move on to the fruit.

Ben cleared his throat just as Rey reached for a strawberry. She shot him a quizzical look, her fingers poised above the bowl.

"You've forgotten our rule, haven't you, Rey?" He kept his tone gentle and light even as he nervously drummed his fingers on his thigh below the marble bar top, where she wouldn't see. The worst thing that could happen was if she told him that she had no idea what he was talking about.

But her eyes widened slightly and she swallowed, her hand dropping back to her side. "I'm sorry," she murmured. Color was rising to her cheeks again; this time, however, it didn't seem to be embarrassment. Behind the abashed facade, she was studying him the way a jungle cat would study the oblivious hunter it had been stalking, who'd finally turned around.

They were waiting for the other's next move.

"You're not supposed to wear anything when you're in my suite," Ben said gravely, urged on by the devil on his shoulder and the spark of challenge in Rey's eyes. "We talked about that, didn't we? You're supposed to always be naked and ready for me. You told me you  _wanted_ that." Fuck, he remembered it as if it had happened yesterday, the ragged  _Yes_ that had escaped from her lips as he growled dirty promises to her while she writhed on his lap. She'd almost called him  _that_ back then, too, although he hadn't realized it at the time.

He was going to see to it that she allowed herself to let go, utterly and completely.

"I— I do. Want that, I mean." Rey licked her lips, which definitely did  _not_ do Ben's self-control any favors. Her hands flew to the buttons of his shirt that she'd borrowed and slowly began undoing them, one by one. "I'm sorry, daddy," she whispered as the garment fell away, revealing her small, perfect breasts. "It won't happen again."

She was trembling with an anticipation that was echoed by the sudden tightening in his trousers. His own hands darted to his fly and worked his cock loose; he was already hard, as if all that it had taken was hearing her call him  _that_ word for every single drop of blood in his body to rush south. "I think you should come here and make it up to me, baby," he said in a voice that miraculously didn't shake.

She wanted him to take control, to take care of her. He would do his best.

Rey wasted no time in scrambling out of her chair and walking over to him, fully, gloriously nude. He hauled her into his lap so that she was facing the breakfast bar, his erection flush against her backside, and she gasped as he slid a hand between her legs.

Ben raised an eyebrow when the tips of his fingers were immediately drenched upon grazing her outer walls, one pushing inside her with practically no resistance. "How are you already so wet?" he blurted out, with real surprise in his tone.

"I told you, this kind of thing turns me on right quick." She sounded a bit...  _annoyed._ And it didn't take him long to figure out that it was because he'd broken character.

"Sorry." He kissed her neck, delighting in the way she squirmed against him at the contact. "Okay, let's do this—"

"Ben," Rey huffed, "it's not sexy when you  _announce_ it—"

"Right. Sorry." He cleared his throat, then said in a deeper voice, "What a good girl—"

_"Ben!"_ She burst out laughing.

And so did he.

Her mirth was infectious. Already he felt years younger, his heart so much lighter. He scattered affectionate kisses along her neck and her shoulder as they laughed, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like this with a woman— least of all while his hard-on was twitching against her ass  _and_ while one of his fingers was currently being squeezed by her cunt.

Eventually, though, her giggles tapered off into soft little cries as he added another finger and began to  _thrust,_ his other hand tweaking her pert left nipple. "You done mouthing off, princess?" he asked into the delicate slope of her neck, and,  _fuck,_ how her inner walls  _clenched_ around his fingers at the endearment.

"Yes, daddy," Rey sighed, arching back against him. She craned her neck to pepper kisses along his jawline, reaching behind her to tangle her fingers in his hair. "I want to cum now, please."

"Do you think you deserve it?" He swiped the pad of his thumb over her clit in the lightest and most fleeting of touches, stopping as soon as she whimpered— which earned him the cutest damn pout from her.  _Jesus,_ he was so hard. He had to take a deep, fortifying breath before continuing, "After all, you didn't even obey the only rule we had. Doesn't that make you a bad girl?" He slowed the pace of his wrist against her sex and switched to tracing around the tight bud of her nipple instead of rolling it between his fingers. "Bad girls don't get to cum, Rey," he rasped in her ear.

"Oh, my God," she all but  _moaned,_ collapsing against his chest. He was about to tease her for being the one to break character this time— and then to nix that idea and ask her instead if this was all right or if he was going too far— but she suddenly started rocking her hips to meet the languid thrusts of his fingers, the movement causing her ass to rub alongside his cock, and all coherent thought fled.

"Daddy,  _please."_ Rey's voice was pitched just the slightest bit higher, frayed with need at the edges. "Please, I really, really need to cum, I'll be so good, I promise." Her lithe body undulated against his, desperately chasing more stimulation, and the thing was—

The thing was that his first instinct was to relent. How could he keep saying no to her when she was flushed and wet and begging and everything he ever wanted? But there was another instinct that soon came into play, one that had been honed after years of contract negotiations and climbing the corporate ladder. It was an instinct that told him that giving in now would set an unsatisfactory precedent.

It was an instinct that told him to cut a deal, instead.

Rey whined as Ben slipped his fingers out of her soaking cunt. He soothed her with a kiss to her temple. "You can cum," he said, "on two conditions. First, it has to be on my cock." Looking down at her face in profile, he saw the corner of her lips curve into a slight grin. "And, secondly—" He glanced at the untouched bowl of strawberries— "you have to finish your food."

Her grin faded in momentary confusion, and then she was blinking up at him, her lips parted, her breathing ragged and shallow. Her pupils blown wide with arousal.

Holding his gaze, she nodded.

Shit.

She really  _was_ a good girl.

🎀💎🎀

There was no other feeling in the spectrum of human experience that was comparable to that of Rey sinking down onto his cock. Nothing even came close. Every other sensation in the world was a waste of time.

Ben gritted his teeth as she enveloped him gradually. Inch by inch. It was taking all of his willpower to refrain from grabbing her by the hips and just fucking into her right then and there. She wasn't making it easy for him, what with the way she squeaked every time she managed to take him deeper. As if the size of him was knocking the breath out of her lungs. As if he was too big for her.

The mere thought of  _that_ flowed through his veins like a drug.

"You're doing so well, sweetheart," he hummed as he thumbed at her hard little nipples. She groaned, throwing her head back against his chest, lowering herself onto his shaft even further. "That's it, baby, sit on daddy's cock." He was growing bolder with his words due in large part to how they caused tremors to run through her slim frame. She was so  _responsive—_ to his touch, to his voice, to  _everything._ It was driving him out of his  _mind._

And, finally, with one last roll of her hips, all of his length disappeared inside her. They both hissed as he bottomed out. "It's— it's all the way in, daddy," she breathed, shaky and triumphant, and he dipped his head to suck a bruise along the column of her throat.

"Such a good girl, taking all of me in this tiny pussy," he mumbled. "You feel amazing, Rey." He brought one hand down to where they were joined and began playing with her clit, eliciting a strangled whimper from her. "Now eat your strawberries."

She did as she was told, plucking one of the heart-shaped red fruits from the bowl and dipping it into the cream, then bringing it to her mouth. "How is it?" he asked as she chewed.

"Very nice," was her distracted reply. She shifted impatiently on his lap, trying to fuck back onto him, but he stilled her movements with one hand on her hip.

"You can't cum until you finish eating, princess," he reminded her gently.

"I'm  _so_ going to get you back for this," Rey broke out of the scene long enough to vow.

Ben smirked, pinching her nipple. "Looking forward to it."

It was the sweetest kind of torture, having her impaled on his cock and not rutting into her as she popped strawberries into her mouth. But there was a thrill to it as well— a certain adrenaline rush that came with testing both their limits. His suit trousers were  _drenched_ with her arousal, getting wetter and wetter as the minutes ticked by and he caressed her breasts and her clit lightly, making sure that it was never enough to drive her over the edge. She was getting frustrated and red-faced— even a little teary-eyed— but,  _God,_ she took it like a champ, obediently keeping still even as her inner walls squeezed around him with something like desperation.

Rey took the last strawberry from the bowl, swirled it into what was left of the cream, and offered it to him. Ben ate the fruit from her hand, kissing her fingertips that were stained with its sugary juices. And then their lips met, and she tasted like strawberries and cream as he licked his way into her mouth, massaging circles on her clit, gradually increasing the pace and the pressure until she wrenched her lips from his, shuddering with the effort of not moving her hips.

"Daddy, please, may I cum now?" she begged. "I ate the strawberries and I'm sitting on your cock like you said, I've been good, please let me cum—" Her pleading dissolved into a startled squeal as he latched on to her small waist, lifting her up and slamming her back down on his erection.

"Go ahead, baby," he growled in her ear. "Play with your clit while daddy fucks you. Go ahead and cum."

Rey sobbed in relief, her hand darting between her legs as he bounced her on his lap. Ben couldn't believe that he'd managed to hold out this far, and he didn't think he'd be able to last much longer— thankfully, he soon felt the telltale fluttering around his shaft, and then Rey was tensing and spasming, and crying out hoarsely, washing over him like a wave. A few more sloppy thrusts and he followed, and the last thing  that he glimpsed  before everything whited out in pleasure was the curve of Rey's lips , the look on her face dazed and wrecked as she smiled like she had big plans for them both.


	10. l'automne, part iv

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DONUT LOOK AT ME I KNOW IT'S BEEN 84 YEARS 😭 My personal life has been a trash fire for the last several months but I'm happy to be writing in this universe again—I've missed this kinky couple and you guys so much! I will do my best to have another update for y'all by next week. In the meantime, feedback would be much appreciated. ❤️
> 
> **Content warning for this chapter: Sex toys, rough blowjobs, and a little bit of orgasm denial.**

There were very few things in life that Ben hated more than waiting in line. The way he saw it, such an act was for people who had no multibillion-dollar company to run. But here he was on this rain-spattered September afternoon, just one of dozens of shmucks standing in a cluttered row on the Boulevard du Palais—all because Rey had gotten it into her pretty little head to take him to see the Sainte-Chapelle once they were done with lunch.

“It’s one of the most gorgeous buildings in Paris,” she was telling him, her fingers tucked into the crook of his elbow while he peered down at her with his hands in the pockets of his checked gray Maurice Sedwell suit. “And one of the oldest surviving Capetian ones, too. Louis IX commissioned it to house the relics he bought from the last Latin Emperor—this included the Crown of Thorns, which was later moved to Notre Dame, and the Image of Edessa, which disappeared during the French Revolution.”

“Ah, there we are. I’m so relieved,” Ben quipped. “I was worried something was the matter, seeing as you hadn’t brought up the French Revolution all morning.”

“Oh, you—!” Rey made a face, the most adorable face, and she slapped his arm lightly with her free hand, looking so adorably put out that he had no choice but to lean in and press his lips to hers in a quick, chaste kiss.

She was smiling when he pulled away—and so was he, maybe a little—and so was the tiny, elderly Japanese couple standing in line behind them, the woman a bit misty-eyed as her husband patted her hand, their wrinkled faces alight with sweet nostalgia.

The tips of Ben’s ears turned pink under such scrutiny. There was a part of him that was tempted to pull away from Rey—to correct these strangers’ obvious assumptions, they weren’t _together_ together—but in the end he couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. Rey had finally gotten over her hang-ups about charging expensive things to the credit card he'd given her; she was wearing a red Louis Vuitton trench coat crafted from soft matte leather, embellished with gold buttons and tied at the waist, and her black dress underneath was Alexander Wang, short and tight and ruche-detailed. Her tights, she’d told him when he complimented her outfit earlier, were from Uniqlo, because even with the change in her circumstances she didn’t see the point in hundred-euro tights. And then there were the black high-heeled ankle boots she’d bought last August adorning her lithe feet, and there was the gray-beige Birkin dangling from her slender arm, and there was the colorful silk Twilly that he’d purchased with the bag looped into the loose waves of her glossy chestnut hair.

She looked incredibly gorgeous, completely and utterly Parisienne. He didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of staying away from her.

Rey never let go of his arm the whole time they were standing out on the street, making lighthearted conversation about anything and everything and shuffling forward every few minutes along with the rest of the queue. She remained tucked into his side even as they stepped aside and urged the elderly Japanese couple to go ahead of them. And Ben thought it was kind of— _nice._ He hadn’t really considered himself a fan of public displays of affection, but perhaps that was because Bazine hadn’t been so keen on it, either. The first few times he’d attempted to hold her hand whenever they were out on a date, she would visibly reign in her annoyance. Eventually he’d just stopped trying.

In stark contrast, Rey seemed content to bask in his warmth; she actively sought it out, even. He was more than happy to let her—and more than happy to bask in hers as well.

The neighborhood they were in was called the Île de la Cité. It was a concrete island on the Seine that served as the center of Paris and its medieval heart—naturally, that meant it was crowded even though it was no longer peak season. Almost an hour went by before they reached the entrance of the unabashedly Gothic church and she excitedly ushered him in, past the statue of the Virgin Mary that stood guard at the door. As far as famous landmarks went, the Sainte-Chapelle was not up there with the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids of Giza in the sense that photos of it were everywhere, and Ben had never made it a habit to research tourist attractions. He was seeing its interior for the first time. And it was—

— _exceedingly_ disappointing.

_“The most gorgeous building in Paris,”_ as Rey had called it, was a small, dimly lit chamber crammed with tourists and souvenir stalls. Ben blinked, wondering if she was playing some sort of elaborate joke on him. She tugged him forward by the arm to inspect the place and… well. He supposed that the architecture was interesting. The finely carved columns were adorned with _fleur de lys_ on an azure background alternating with golden Castilian towers on a red background, which were the coat-of-arms of Louis IX’s mother, Blanche de Castille, Rey told him— _“She was Eleanor of Aquitaine’s granddaughter, did you know?”—_ and the walls were decorated with trefoil arches each topped by an oculus containing a medallion set representing the Twelve Apostles. The low ceiling was done up in a rich, sumptuous blue, studded with hundreds of golden stars. There was a thirteenth-century fresco depicting the Annunciation that Rey proudly declared to be the oldest wall painting in Paris as well as a handful of colored glass windows featuring other biblical scenes.

But the simple truth of the matter was that Ben just didn’t _get_ it. The Sainte-Chapelle was dingy with age and he was being jostled on all sides by total strangers, a few of whom looked as mystified as he felt. If he were a little taller, his head would have scraped the roof. The place looked like a crypt, basically—and when his gorgeous tour guide pointed out the tombstones on the floor covering the sepulchers of treasurers and reverends, he realized that it _was_ one.

“Well, then,” Rey said after a while, “shall we?”

Ben hesitated, studying her bright smile in the musty half-light, noting that she was no longer clinging to his arm. The time they’d spent inside seemed appallingly disproportionate to the time they’d spent in the queue. Had she picked up on his disappointment? He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, even if this very important historical monument _had_ turned out to be kind of a dump.

He offered her a guarded nod and she slipped her hand into his, pulling him back toward the entrance—and up a narrow corkscrew staircase off to the side of the doorway that he hadn’t noticed was there when they came in.

“Oh,” he said as he followed her onto the landing, “I didn’t know there was a second level—”

He broke off abruptly, the breath catching in his throat as he stepped into a sea of light.

Supported by slender, gilded piers, the starry, vaulted ceiling of the cavernous upper chapel floated above walls that were practically non-existent, almost every inch of them covered in fifteen-meter-tall stained-glass windows that glowed in the afternoon sun. The predominant colors were red and blue but there was yellow, too, and green, rendered into liquid, jewel-toned hues, painted figures telling the story of creation, of Adam and Eve, of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, wrapping around Ben, shining everywhere he looked.

_Ama namin,_ he remembered Breha Organa praying in the language that she’d carried across the sea as the daughter of immigrants, bringing her faith with her from Manila to New York, _sumasalangit ka._

Our Father, who art in Heaven.

Everyone in the Sainte-Chapelle was bathed in radiance. And none of them blazed brighter than Rey, who was grinning at him with the stained-glass windows reflected in her eyes. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, gold… and hazel. He stared at her, speechless, bewildered, a lump in his throat. He missed his family. He had never admitted that, even to himself, until now.

“This is what I love about Paris,” she told him, quietly joyful. “You climb the stairs from the lower chapel and suddenly there’s the upper chapel. You walk down a busy street and you turn the corner and suddenly there’s the Panthéon. You go from the nondescript to the glory of the ages. Just—” she snapped her fingers—“like that.”

🎀💎🎀

They were holding hands as they meandered back to the Boulevard du Palais, and they met the Japanese couple again on their way out. “You and your boyfriend are so cute,” the woman said to Rey in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

Rey blushed so fiercely that she looked like a tomato. She squeezed Ben’s fingers that were intertwined with hers, and he—

—was raw from the splendor of the Sainte-Chapelle and the memories it had elicited and how beautiful she had looked bathed in its rosy light. Was shaken by everything in his life that had led him to this point. Was terrified by what his heart could still feel, bruised as it was, as cold as he’d tried to make it be in order to protect himself.

_“I got the part. I’m moving to California. I… don’t want to do this anymore. I’ll send for the rest of my things.”_

Ben had come home one day to find Bazine standing in the foyer with her luggage, waiting for the taxi that would bring her to the airport. As he watched, she’d taken off the ring that she’d picked out at Anna Sheffield and placed it on the table, next to the Ming vase. She had left their apartment without looking back.

He couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t let it happen again. And especially not with Rey. He instinctively knew that if it was her it would be worse.

It would destroy him.

“Is something wrong?”

Her hesitant, cautious voice broke into his thoughts, dragging him back into the present moment. The Japanese couple was gone. He’d spaced out.

Ben shook his head to clear it. “I’m fine, just a little tired from work,” he lied. He let go of her hand under the pretext of pulling out his phone to call Mitaka. “Let’s go. I’ll drop you off at your place.”

“Oh, but—but I was going to take you to see Notre-Dame,” Rey sputtered. “It’s not far from here—”

He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it undergoing restoration after the fire?”

“Well, yes—” She faltered, her hands twisting together. The expression on her face skittered close to panic, and it belatedly occurred to him that his tone had been very pointed and cold.

He forced his lips into an impersonal, apologetic smile. “Maybe next time. I have some business I need to attend to.” _This_ wasn’t a lie—there were some proposals requiring review that he’d put off so he could have lunch and sightsee with her. “Let me know when you’re free next week?”

Something in Rey’s lovely eyes seemed to die. Before he could dwell on it—before the sheer weight of it could hit him like a blow—she blinked and nodded, her features smoothing. He’d probably just imagined it. A trick of autumn. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Sorry—I was just surprised. I didn’t know you were busy.”

“I’m always busy,” he drawled. She darted him an abashed grin that—in the split second before his gaze slipped away from her to focus on his phone—looked a bit too thin at the edges.

It was for the best, Ben rationalized to himself as they waited for his car. He couldn’t just spend the whole day with her on a whim. It wasn’t as though that was the kind of thing called for by their relationship.

It wasn’t as though they were in an actual relationship in the first place.

🎀💎🎀

As one month filtered into the next and October cloaked Paris in silver and orange, Ben was initially worried that he had offended Rey beyond fixing. He had never before brushed her off as brusquely as he’d done outside the Sainte-Chapelle—unless one counted the time he’d stopped replying to her messages during his bad case of cold feet a few months ago. He winced to himself whenever he remembered that, and he winced some more whenever he remembered the panic on her face as he cut their Île de la Cité excursion short.

He was making a complete mess of things. He wondered if he could afford to cut himself some slack on account of never before having had a—a what Rey was to him. But the more Ben turned it over in his mind, the more he became deeply, piercingly aware of the fact that he wasn’t being fair to her. _He_ was the one who had set the terms of this arrangement. She didn’t deserve for him to take it out on her because he couldn’t get his head straight.

It turned out that there was no cause for immediate concern. The next time he and Rey went out to lunch, she was perfectly normal. Her usual clever, luminescent self that went down his senses like fine champagne. He took her back to his penthouse at The Oradin and the sex was as amazing as usual. There was something about her that made him feel like he could never get enough. She was always willing, always trembling with anticipation and already wet every time he reached for her, as if their unorthodox situation was a hotwired shortcut to desire. Her wide eyes and her breathy tones, the way her sun-kissed form moved over his sheets, they all sank into his veins, burning hotter than any religion.

Ben focused the single-minded intensity that had made him both revered and reviled on the corporate stage into thinking of new ways to make Rey cum harder than she ever had before. He became comfortable taking control in bed, because that was what she wanted. He _researched._ It was something of a new obsession.

Several discreetly wrapped packages began to trickle into his hotel suite. He opened one of them one evening a couple of weeks into October, while waiting for Rey to join him after her shift at the café.

She burst in through the elevator doors at a quarter past seven in a flurry of apologies, as there had been more customers than usual. She was still wearing her waitress’ uniform—a prim buttoned blouse, a black pencil skirt, sheer stockings, and sensible shoes, her hair gathered into a neat column of three buns above her nape—and she dropped her Birkin on the breakfast bar and skipped over to him as he stood up from the couch. Her steady stream of chatter tapered off when he leaned in to press his lips to hers.

“I don’t mind you being late,” Ben assured her after he’d pulled away and she was dimpling up at him, lazily running her palms along his chest. “That’s not an issue. I just don’t understand why you haven’t quit your job yet. You—”

“—don’t need the money, I know,” Rey interrupted. “But I’m not really the idle type. I need something to do with my hands.”

“I have a few ideas about that,” he muttered, kissing her again.

Rey laughed against his mouth, then it was her turn to break the kiss, waltzing out of his reach before he could attempt to very _persuasively_ make his case for skipping dinner. “I need to freshen up. Give me a few minutes.”

“Take your time. We’re eating downstairs and our reservation isn’t until eight-thirty.” Ben watched with no small amount of incredulity as Rey extracted a shoebox and a scrap of peach fabric that was ostensibly a dress from the Birkin. “How did you even manage to cram all of that in?”

“You know I’m quite talented at cramming things in, _mon petit chou,”_ she airily shot back. His jaw dropped at the innuendo and the tips of his ears turned pink at the endearment. She winked at him and disappeared into his bathroom.

He was too nervous to sit back down. She seemed to be in a mischievous mood, and he could only hope that it would extend to what he had planned for tonight. He shrugged on the black Kiton suit jacket that he’d taken off after work and fixed his tie in front of the full-length mirror by the bed, listening to the sounds of her moving about, of water running. He tapped his foot anxiously, half-expecting her to storm out of the bathroom any moment now and throw the— _object—_ that he’d cleaned and left on the sink at his head.

She reemerged in a sleeveless peach dress with a neckline so low that it plunged almost to her navel, the structured bodice sloping into a flared, subtly pleated skirt that ended mid-thigh. The aquamarine Bucherer earrings that he’d bought for her last July winked in the ambient lighting, their rose gold frame matching her strappy stiletto heels. Her chestnut hair was loose, artfully tousled, framing angelic features that were screwed up in innocent confusion.

“Daddy?” Rey’s tone was soft and sweet. She held up the slender pink vibrator. “I found this in the bathroom…”

It took all of Ben’s willpower to suppress what he was pretty sure promised to be the most boyishly ecstatic, most _perverted_ grin of his life. He schooled his expression into the nearest thing to composed that he was capable of. “I left it there for you, baby,” he drawled, observing with rapt attention as her eyes turned the color of dark jade. As her slim fingers tightened around the curving silicone. “You’re wearing it to dinner.”

Rey swallowed. The silence that stretched between them was endless, although his heart was slamming against his ribcage so hard that it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it.

Then she looked down shyly, biting her lip. “I might need some help putting it in.”

“Not a problem,” Ben replied after yet another brief internal struggle for calm that was made all the more difficult by his cock twitching with interest in his black trousers. “Come here.”

She closed the distance between them in swift, graceful strides. His hands settled on her hips and he gently coaxed her to stand between him and the mirror, her back against his chest. Both of them stared at their reflections, and he was once again struck by the astounding difference in their size. Out in the world, Rey carried herself tall and certain, but here in this room, surrounded by glass walls beyond which twinkled the Parisian night, she allowed herself to be molded by his hands, allowed him to engulf her.

He recognized this for the gift that it was. Even if the effect _was_ somewhat ruined by the bright pink vibrator that she was holding.

Ben swept Rey’s silky hair to one side, baring the elegant slope of her neck. Without peeling his gaze from the mirror, he bent forward slightly, setting his lips to the newly exposed skin as he cupped her breasts. She moaned, her head rolling back onto his shoulder, her body arching into his ministrations. He watched with something like triumph as her cute little nipples pebbled underneath the thin peach bodice, their outline unmistakable in the amber lighting.

“No bra tonight, sweetheart?” he murmured absently, tweaking one nipple and then the other as she cried out. “Wanted to be ready for me?”

“Y-yes, daddy.” The stuttered phrase in that dazed and breathless tone sent a bolt of arousal lancing through his system. He ran his thumbs over her stiff nipples until her eyes began to flutter shut, her mouth parting.

“Keep your eyes open,” he said firmly.

“But—” she started to protest, only for the rest of the sentence to vanish on her tongue as his hands stilled.

Their gazes met in the mirror, and hers was filled with _heat._

This was part of the thrill for her. Punishment or reward, according to how she acted. And the mere fact that she considered it a punishment when he stopped touching her—well, it made him feel big. Made him feel as though he mattered.

“Okay,” Rey finally whispered. “Okay, I’ll look.”

And she did. They both did, watching as his wandering fingers turned her into a trembling mess, as his lips and his teeth covered her neck in bruises. “Needed you to see this,” he told her, his voice like gravel. “Needed you to see for yourself what a dirty girl you are, liking it when daddy plays with your tits before dinner.”

She swayed against him, her cheeks flushed. Ben gave her right nipple one last, sharp tug and then pried the vibrator from her loose grasp. “Hike that pretty skirt up for me, baby.”

Rey complied with a quiet eagerness. He devoured the sight of the peach fabric lifting to gradually reveal her toned, freckled thighs… and the flimsy lace panties at their apex. Skintight and snowy white. He was hard now, stirring against her backside—they had to stop fooling around or they’d miss their dinner reservation, and that wouldn’t do at all. She’d had a long day of school and work; she needed to eat.

With his free hand, Ben pulled gingerly at the band of Rey’s underwear, using the reflection in the mirror to guide his movements as his other hand brought the vibrator close. She needed no urging to spread her legs, and the two of them watched while his hand practically _covered_ the triangle of lace from view as he slipped the sleek pink device inside.

She gasped, reaching behind her to brace against his shoulder, her hips bucking into his palm. The vibe slid in with no resistance. She was _drenched._

“Fuck, you’re incredible,” he rasped. She glowed at his praise. He thumbed the button on the device—it did nothing, not yet--and pulled her panties back up, then rested his hands on her slim shoulders and turned her around to face him.

“How does it feel?” he asked. This was her way out—she could tell him that she wasn’t comfortable and they’d forget about it.

“It’s…” Rey’s brow wrinkled. She fidgeted slightly, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip as the motion jostled the vibe in her cunt. “It’s a little weird,” she said slowly, “but it’s good.” She shivered a little as he ran his hand down her spine. “It’s really good, Ben.”

He smiled, pressing a ludicrously chaste kiss to her forehead. A glance at the clock on the wall revealed that they had a little more time to kill before their reservation. From past experience, the French tended to get a bit _shirty_ when you were too early or too late.

And there really was no help for it, in any case. He was _tenting._

Ben pushed down gently on Rey’s shoulders. “Think you can get me off in fifteen minutes, baby girl?”

The faintest trace of a mischievous smile flickered at the corner of her lips. “I’ll try, daddy.”

She dropped to her knees before him. Her nimble fingers made quick work of his belt and the zipper on his trousers, rearranging and shoving fabric aside until his erection sprang free. This was almost routine by now, her tongue licking long stripes up his shaft, her lips strewing wet kisses along his tip, but it always felt like the first time. And when she took him into her mouth, sucking him in the rhythm that he liked best, his gaze strayed back to the mirror—and he nearly came right then and there.

He was so entrenched in the scene that the reflection of his features remained stern even as Rey’s hot little mouth worked its magic. Dressed in his black suit, he towered over her while her head bobbed between his legs, her glorious ass wiggling in the skimpy peach dress as she moaned around his cock, the hidden vibe lodged in her lace-clad pussy. The sense of power rushed through him, appealing to his most primal senses in a manner that no boardroom could mimic.

So many things in his life were beyond his control, but here and now he could take charge of Rey. Because she let him. Because it was what she wanted.

Ben cupped the back of Rey’s head, pushing her forward. She froze like the obedient partner that she was, her hands clutching at his waist for support, her jaw going slack. He thrust into her mouth, his cock sliding in even deeper until it hit the back of her throat.

She _gagged._ Wet, warm, silky softness constricted around him, and for all his bravado his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his skull. “You’re really a goddamn dream, you know that?” he growled at her, his breath hitching as he rolled his hips against her jaw, his fingers buried in her hair to hold her in place so that she could do nothing but take it as his erection pumped in and out of the circle of her lips. “Such a good girl, opening wide so I can fuck your mouth—so pretty when you choke on daddy’s cock—” Rey whimpered, her cheeks hollowed around him, her hazel eyes wide and tear-stained as she looked up. She was grinding back on her heels, trying to rub herself against the vibe as best as she could. “You’re going to drink all my cum, aren’t you, sweetheart?” he asked her darkly, and she nodded, her mouth still full of him, and he increased his pace, his cock wet with spit and precum as it plunged down her throat, the bulge visible beneath her delicate skin.

He finished on her tongue with a grunt, pressing firmly on the back of her neck to pin her face to his hips as she valiantly swallowed his release. She gagged and groaned softly with each of his haphazard thrusts as he wrung every last drop of cum into her throat.

When he was finished, Ben zipped himself back up, looking at the clock again. Only twelve minutes had passed. “That mouth of yours is going to be the death of me,” he told Rey wryly as he held out a hand to help her to her feet.

But she made no move to stand. She peered up at him, still on her knees, her pink lips shiny with spit, his semen trickling down her chin. He knew that scrunched-up look on her face, that pleading in her gaze. That was the expression she always got when she was turned on and desperate. “Daddy,” she whined, her face red, “please, please, I need to cum—”

“We have to eat dinner first, baby,” he said, making sure his tone was gentle yet implacable. “Come on. Up you get.”

A sob clawed its way out of her throat as she took his hand. Had this been months ago, Ben would have relented, would have tossed her onto the bed and eaten her out until she was crazy from it. But she’d made it clear that she could take more than he thought she was capable of, and he was going to hold her to that.

He fixed her dress and her hair and then ushered her towards the elevator with his hand on the small of her back. She stumbled against him, and he tried not to think of the vibe jostling inside her with every step.

He kissed her sweetly the whole ride down to the lobby of the hotel, their arms wrapped around each other. When the elevator started to coast to a stop, he lifted his head and smirked down at her. “Oh, by the way, that little toy…”

“Yes?” Rey prompted, wary and entranced all at once.

Still smirking, Ben showed her the app on his phone just as the elevator doors glided open and the bright lights and the streams of various chatter in the lobby washed over them. “It’s remote-controlled.”


	11. l'automne, part v

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway here's 6000+ words of sheer filth because I'm really going through it!
> 
> **Content warnings for this chapter: A _lot_ of orgasm denial, use of toys in public including some limited interaction with an unaware third party who is just trying to live his life, exhibitionism kink, rough sex, a smidgen of mild degrading language (but no name-calling). Also, there is a part wherein Rey tells Ben to be gentle and he isn't, but it's narratively clear that it's part of the scene and they'd talked about it beforehand.**

“Monsieur Solo. Madame. Please follow me.”

The maître d’ led the way to Ben and Rey’s table with a hint of aplomb, and for good reason, Ben thought—over the course of these last few months in Paris he had gathered that it was a source of pride to work at Shine Astara. The Oradin’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant was an oasis of calm just beyond a lobby that could sometimes get very hectic; it boasted gigantic crystal chandeliers, ornate rococo furniture, and snow-white walls offset by ethereal pastel drapery and sculpted gold accents. The lights had been turned down low for the dinner service, and wide gilded windows afforded sweeping views of the impeccably manicured hotel gardens shining in the moonlight.

“I feel like I’m in Versailles,” Rey remarked after they’d been seated and the maître d’ had bustled off.

“I’ve never been,” Ben said lightly, quite enjoying the way she was fidgeting ever so subtly in her chair, trying to get comfortable with the vibrator inside her. He hadn’t failed to notice how the eyes of more than a few diners had followed Rey across the room. She was so beautiful tonight, all long legs and perky breasts, all golden skin and skimpy peach fabric, drawing attention, eliciting desire.

And she was _his._ No one else knew about the toy that he’d slipped between her legs before they went downstairs, no one else knew that she’d let him fuck her throat before they swept in here without a single hair out of place. No one else knew that he was going to edge her tonight, right under their noses.

Anticipation bloomed through his veins like a fever. He was almost _giddy_ with it.

“We should _definitely_ go to Versailles one day, if you can spare the time,” Rey was telling him. “It’s really ostentatious, you’d love it, we can go early in the morning and have a picnic out on the grounds, there’s this lovely boulangerie in the town that makes the best _pain complet…”_

Although Ben really _did_ hang on to every word she was saying, a grin tugged at his lips, growing wider and wider with every second that passed. She was _rambling._ It was an obvious attempt to distract herself from what her tight lace panties were pressing into her. Her cheeks were flushed the most fetching shade of pink in a way that mere makeup couldn’t accomplish, and her gaze kept darting to his phone, which he’d placed on the table next to his wineglass.

Rey eventually broke off from her random and long-winded spiel about Versailles to hiss at him. “Will you wipe that insufferable smirk off your face!”

This, of course, only served to make Ben grin even harder. “You’re so cute when you’re riled up,” he teased.

She _scowled_ at him.

Their waiter was a fresh-faced twentysomething who introduced himself as Gaelan when he arrived with the menus and a bottle of unoaked Sauvignon Blanc. The wine was crisp and acidic, the perfect aperitif, and perhaps it greased the wheels of mischief running through Ben’s head.

He picked up his phone while Rey was busy studying the menu as she chatted with Gaelan in French, a conversation that Ben had no hope of following anyway. It was a very good thing that he’d had the foresight to request the most secluded corner table in the restaurant—there was no need to be paranoid that some poor unsuspecting fellow guest would accidentally glimpse the app that he’d just pulled up.

He had tested the controls earlier, holding the bright pink vibe in one fist while the thumb of the other tapped at his phone. He’d felt like a damn fool doing so, but he hoped that the private loss of his dignity could pay off tonight. He was deeply familiar with what Rey liked, and after practicing he knew exactly what buttons to push—literally and figuratively speaking.

Across the table, Rey asked Gaelan a question. He rattled off a slew of French in the universal manner that all waiters no matter the language rattled off house specials, and Rey tilted her head as she listened intently.

Ben thumbed the switch on the app that activated the vibe at its lowest setting.

And Rey’s hazel eyes went as wide as saucers. As wide as they’d been back in the elevator when it dawned on her that the button he’d manually depressed on the vibe had been the Bluetooth activator.

She looked over at him in shock. He made sure to keep an impassive expression on his features, calmly meeting her gaze. She’d told him once that she loved it when he was all businesslike, that it made her feel as though she didn’t have to worry about a thing because he had it all figured out.

“Madame?” Gaelan prompted expectantly, having finished listing the specials with neither Ben nor Rey realizing it.

_“Ça a l’air bon,”_ Rey hurried to grate out. She couldn’t quite look at Gaelan. “Um, Ben, do you mind being the one to order?”

“It’s the least I can do.” Ben had to suppress the urge to wink at her. There was a part of him that felt sorry enough for their polite, helpful, innocent waiter as it was. He put his phone back beside his wineglass, screen facing down, and began perusing the cream-colored menu’s curly, embossed script as Gaelan smoothly positioned himself at his side of the table in a blink.

All of the items had English translations, and Ben felt a sudden rush of gratitude toward the benevolent gods of fine dining for that. Tonight was about the long game, a slow seduction, and there was nothing less sexy than him butchering his way through words like _œuf._ How did one even _say_ that?

He ordered a bunch of small plates, two main courses, dessert, and more wine. All while Rey focused intently on him with a darkened gaze that in the half-light was as heated as smoke. As heated as coals smoldering over banked fires.

She’d told him that she liked this, too. Liked when he ordered for her. He had everything taken care of and she could just sit back and let him handle all concerns. She could forget schoolwork and she could forget her neglect-ridden childhood and she could just be a pretty thing for him. Arm candy without a care in the world. The object of _his_ desires. There was an element of trust to it as well—she trusted that he knew her well enough to select the dishes that she would find especially delicious.

And he _also_ knew that the vibrator was currently humming gently within her inner walls, there but not quite, not even half as much stimulation as she needed. He intended to give her what she needed later.

If she was good.

“You were saying?” Ben encouraged her with what he was pretty sure was the most shit-eating of grins in the history of sexual congress after the waiter excused himself to dispatch their orders to the kitchen. “About Versailles?”

Rey stuck her tongue out at him. He chuckled, raspy and low, and turned the vibe up to the next setting.

She gave a start, clutching at the edges of the cloth-covered table. He watched as if in a trance as she swallowed the gasp that threatened to escape her lips.

And then a flash of mutiny sparked across her features. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. She was defiant, unwilling to surrender. She was the most magnificent thing Ben had ever seen.

“So, Versailles,” Rey said coolly, “was the principal royal residence for a little over a hundred years, up until the French Revolution—”

“The what now?” Ben couldn’t help joking. “Maybe you could fill me in on that, we’ve never talked about it before—”

She kicked him under the table. Then she sucked in a shivery breath as the movement jostled the vibe inside her.

He was enjoying himself so, _so_ much.

“Ver— _Versailles,”_ she pointedly resumed, “started out as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII, and in 1630 he went to stay there for a bit after a fight with his mother.” Ben snorted, and the corner of Rey’s mouth twitched. She was very still as she continued talking, her brow furrowed in concentration. “His mother was Marie de’ Medici—yes, _those_ Medicis—and they’d quarreled because she demanded the removal of the First Minister at the time, Cardinal Richelieu. While Marie thought that she had successfully persuaded her son in this matter, Louis summoned Richelieu to Versailles for a private conversation and then reinstated him. French historians call this event _la journée des Dupes,_ after which Louis decided to convert his hunting lodge into a chateau and his mother went into exile.”

“Seems like a bit of an overreaction on Marie’s part,” Ben mused.

“Oh, I have no doubt that she was _forced_ to go away. I read that Louis concluded he would never be free of his mother’s plotting as long as she remained at court. But I also think—” And here Rey’s tone turned conspiratorial, and Ben found himself leaning forward, the toy between his dinner date’s legs all but forgotten—“that no one who was chronicling Marie’s life at the time could have been trusted to write an unbiased review.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Because she was a Medici,” said Rey. “She was born and raised in Italy. Henry IV needed her money, but the French could not accept an Italian queen. I’m sure she was no saint, but I’m fairly certain that there was at least a _little_ vilification going on. They did the same thing with Marie Antoinette.”

“ _She_ wasn’t French?” Ben was surprised by this. After all, to think about Versailles was to think about Marie Antoinette—the two were that deeply intertwined in the cultural consciousness.

Rey shook her head. “She was Austrian. She was the daughter of the Holy Roman Empress.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I can’t believe we’re talking _history._ I swear, Ben, you’re the only man who can make me forget I have a v—”

A shadow fell over their table. Gaelan had returned with the appetizers.

“—Versailles,” Rey corrected herself without missing a beat, with a perfectly flat deadpan, “is really beautiful. I’ll take you there one of these days.”

Ben _laughed._ It was a deep, sincere laugh that came all the way from his abdomen and sent a tremor through his normally stiff shoulders. It rang through the air, turning heads. He discreetly switched off the vibe and laughed some more as Rey dimpled at him, and their waiter walked away wearing a faint if somewhat confused smile on his own face.

Once Ben’s mirth subsided, Rey tentatively reached across the table, her lithe fingers tracing the knuckles of his hand. “You should laugh more often, _mon chéri,”_ she murmured.

He blinked, surprised as always by the endearment, so freely and affectionately given. “I only laugh when I’m with you.” The confession slid off of his tongue before he could think better of it, and her eyes _shone._

He silently admonished himself as they started eating. He shouldn’t have said that. Such— _notions—_ had no place in the type of arrangement that they had. But these hang-ups of his were quickly forgotten when it soon became apparent that the food was very much to Rey’s tastes. She made quick work of the vanilla-scented fennel mousse topped with a sea urchin Chantilly cream, the penny bun mushrooms that had been slow-cooked in garlic and chervil butter and were served with a corn emulsion, the tiny _vol-au-vent_ pastries filled with diced chicken and truffles, the slivers of veal tongue dabbed with caviar and crème fraiche, the smooth rounds of foie gras terrine, and the _escargots de Bourgogne_ dressed with roasted bone marrow. “This is amazing,” she repeatedly gushed in between mouthfuls, and every time he was powerless to prevent his eyes from crinkling at the corners as he replied that he was glad she liked it.

He remembered the vibrator only when their main courses had arrived.

“Oh, my God,” Rey moaned through cheeks that were bulging with her first bite of juicy chateaubriand and silken Duchesse potatoes, “this is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.” She swallowed with a happy sigh, then demurely looked at Ben through her lashes as she sipped from her wineglass. “Well, the _second-_ best thing.”

Ben’s lips curved with the devil’s own smirk. He was so goddamn _titillated_ that he could barely taste his pepper-crusted medium rare ribeye, although he was sure that it was very good. He waited until Rey was halfway through her steak to turn the vibe back on, and she sucked in a sharp breath.

The toy was state of the art as far as those types of products were concerned. It didn’t make a sound. He tapped the buttons that set it to a moderately vigorous staccato rhythm, watching avidly as Rey’s eyelids fluttered and she tipped her head back slightly. Her spine arching just a little bit. It was clear that a part of her was still conscious about being in a public place.

“You like your chateaubriand, sweetheart?” Ben hummed.

“Yes, daddy,” she whispered. “It melts in my mouth. It’s so delicious. Thank you.”

His heart skipped a beat the way it always did when she called him that these days. He glanced around to see if anyone had heard her, but the nearest table was far enough to be out of earshot of a whisper. The guests at that table were dressed in corporate attire and their conversation was brisk and professional, and he _almost_ wished that they’d heard her. Shake these staid businessmen’s world up a little.

“I’m so happy that you’re having a nice time, baby.” Ben casually fiddled with the app, changing the vibe’s tempo to a slow, steady pulsation that had Rey fidgeting in her seat. To anyone else, it looked like she was only trying to get comfortable. But dots of perspiration were starting to bead her brow.

He made a show of putting his phone down and eating his steak. The crotch area of his trousers was tightening with the beginnings of an erection. He had never before dared to imagine that sex could be like this, that he would ever have a partner who would be down for this. He knew that from now on, if to think about Versailles was to think about Marie Antoinette, then to think about Paris would be to think about Rey.

By the time the final course of the meal rolled around, she was barely holding on.

“Is the food to madame’s liking so far?” Gaelan addressed Rey in English for Ben’s benefit. He had just cleared away the empty savory plates and brought over a tray full of desserts.

_“Oui, c’est délicieux.”_ Rey’s voice _wobbled_ as the toy buzzed between her legs. She disguised it with a hasty cough.

Ben hadn’t felt this proud of himself since he made CEO.

“And as for yourself, monsieur?” Gaelan asked him.

“This is the best night of my life,” Ben said absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off of Rey.

The young waiter’s scrawny chest puffed with pride and he presented their desserts with a flourish, rattling off the names of each one as he transferred them from his tray to the table. “I have for you a lovely Tarte Tatin made with Calville Blanc apples, some chocolate-filled croquembouche bound together by threads of sweet, smoked caramel, pots de crème infused with absinthe for that little kick of anise, crunchy honey lace cookies layered with blackberry mousse, and, of course, vacherin—our special meringue cake filled with a fig sorbet and coated in vanilla cream.”

“Should I be bracing myself?” Rey asked Ben once their waiter strode off.

Ben took a moment to assess whether it was a genuine question on her part. Whether she had reached the limits of what she was willing to put up with or if she was having any sort of doubt about what would happen next. But she was raising an impertinent brow at him in challenge, a very dark and playful wickedness wreathing her features.

“I can’t fathom how you’d come to that conclusion,” Ben said wryly, “given that I am totally _not_ partial to you eating sweet things while we fool around. Previous experience has shown that it doesn’t turn me on in any way.”

Rey’s flush deepened. It settled into the space between them, heavy and tantalizing, that memory of her eating strawberries dipped in cream while she sat on his cock. A shiver of arousal tugged low at his belly and he picked up his phone again, thumbing a couple more buttons on the app.

“Oh…” That single word fell from Rey’s pink lips as melodiously as siren song. The vibe would be swirling gently inside her now as it continued to quiver; Ben hoped that it was managing to nudge at her G-spot at the same time that the curved stimulator thrummed against her clit. It certainly seemed like it judging from the way she sat up a little straighter in her chair to conceal the fact that she was squirming. It certainly seemed like it judging from the expression that was blooming over her face, that expression she always got whenever her toes were curling from pleasure.

She grabbed the nearest dish, which was the croquembouche, and dug in. Anything to keep her mind off of it, to not end the game. It was with a rather unconscionable amount of delight that he observed her slice each ball of pastry in half so that the rich dark chocolate filling oozed out. It was with even more stirrings of arousal that he watched her pop the halves into her mouth, her lips glistening with the sticky caramel topping.

It was with the slight drop of his jaw that he noticed her nipples pebbling through the peach fabric of her skimpy dress.

Fuck. It was a good thing that she had her back to the rest of the dining area. Not because it would be embarrassing if anyone else saw, but—

—but because no one else should get to see this but _him._

Possessiveness sank its dark claws into Ben’s system. He amped up the toy’s vibrations and then leaned over and tucked a silky wave of Rey’s chestnut hair behind her ear. To the waitstaff and the other guests, it would have looked like a simple and chase gesture of affection. “Wish I could suck on your tits right now, baby.” No one else but Rey heard his low growl. She gulped. “Wish I could bend you over the table _right now._ Toss up that scrap of fabric you call a skirt and just _take_ you in front of all these people.” He cradled the side of her face in one hand, his thumb lightly tracing the curve of her cheek. She gave a soft moan, leaning into his touch. Letting his voice roll over her. “How do you think they’d react if they saw you getting fucked by daddy, hmm? If they knew that I put that little pink vibrator in your cute pussy before we went down downstairs?”

“They’d—they’d realize—that I was yours,” Rey said hoarsely. She clutched at his sleeve. “Ben, just a little more, I’m going to—”

He pressed a quick kiss to the tip of her nose and just as quickly pulled away, settling back in his chair and flicking the off switch on the app. She stared at him with an expression of such utter betrayal that he was instantly struck by guilt.

But he had to be strong. Her orgasms were always more powerful—more _resonant—_ when she felt like she’d earned them.

Still, if he looked into her wounded eyes for literally a second longer, he would cave. So he picked up his spoon and got started on his pot de crème.

It wasn’t too sugary, and the touch of anise was bracing enough to cut through those senses of his that were otherwise muddled by a haze of lust. “I really like this,” he told the ramekin in front of him.

_“Daddy,”_ Rey half whispered, half groaned.

He took a breath and schooled his features into something close to indifference. Only then did he allow his gaze to dart back to her face—her flushed, gorgeous face that was screwed up into an expression that managed to be sulky and beseeching all at once.

It wasn’t too difficult to feign a trace of bemusement. It wasn’t even feigning, not really—not when this was the role she’d assigned him and he spent what felt like more than half of his waking hours dreaming up new ways to make it good for her. It wasn’t too difficult to let his mouth curve into the vaguest of smiles.

“Really, sweetheart?” His voice dropped low beneath all the noises of a dinner service in full swing. “You want to cum right here, in the middle of this restaurant? Surrounded by all these people?”

She nodded.

Ben consulted his phone and picked the slowest rhythm, at the lowest vibration setting. Rey huffed in annoyance. Every muscle of her slender frame seemed tense, as if it was taking all of her willpower to abstain from moving her hips. He winked at her and resumed eating his pot de crème.

After a few seconds of glaring at him, she reached for the vacherin. She chewed so pointedly that he swore he could hear the meringue layer crunch between her teeth. He chuckled to himself—she was such a _brat._

Ben made small talk as they ate, occasionally ramping up the vibe’s pace but never failing to bring it back down. Rey valiantly held up her end of the conversation, no doubt due to the killer combination of British politeness and the innate need to ensure a pleasant dining experience that was so very French. She told him about school and about her friends and about the new antiques gallery that she’d discovered last week and she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, desperately trying to apply pressure where she needed it.

But it was never enough. He made sure that it would never be enough.

By the time they tackled the last dish—the Tarte Tatin—Rey was a mess. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and she kept her head ducked slightly to face the wall so that there was zero chance of anyone else catching a glimpse of her sniffling from pure frustration and letting out nigh soundless whimpers with every silent thrum of the vibe against her most sensitive parts. Her nipples looked as hard as rocks—she’d already been having to discreetly cross her arms over her chest every time the waiter appeared to refill their glasses.

If they were alone, she would be begging Ben right now. Full-on _wailing,_ like he was the only one who could give her what she needed. He glanced at the Rolex Daytona Oyster Albino on his wrist and realized that they’d sat down to dinner two hours ago, which meant that he’d been edging her for nearly as long.

His heart swelled with pride. His baby girl was a trooper.

The tinkling sounds of a pianist warming up filled the air. Ben had been so wrapped up in Rey that he’d failed to notice the evening’s musical entertainment—a portly, balding man in a tuxedo—take his place at the Steinway in the opposite corner of the restaurant. The lights inside Shine Astara dimmed even further, and troops of smartly dressed waiters fanned out to light the candles on the tables. The musician launched into his first song just as Gaelan cleared Ben and Rey’s empty plates, leaving only the half-finished slices of Tarte Tatin, and poured them a glass each of lush golden Château d’Yquem before vanishing back into the shadows.

Ben wasn’t a huge fan of Sauternes, but he had to admit that this particular vintage and this last dessert were made for each other. The Tarte Tatin’s honeyed apple flavor brought out the wine’s notes of mango and apricot and acacia, the pastry’s caramel providing an excellent underscore to that type of sumptuous autumn-orchard sweetness that only Bordeaux could provide. There could have been no more perfect way to end the meal, and Rey made appreciative noises in the back of her throat that had nothing to do with the toy buzzing softly inside her—or, at least, only _partly_ to do with it.

He waited until she was swallowing another bite of pastry and caramel and apples to increase the vibe’s speed. She jerked in her chair, then took a generous swig from her glass, her hips canting just the slightest bit as sugar melted on her tongue and sweet wine slid down her throat.

“Please,” she murmured forlornly, rocking back and forth. “Please, Ben, let me—I need—”

Ben relented. They could afford to be a little less subtle; it was dark and most of the attention was focused on the pianist, who had hit his stride with his second song, his expert playing and sonorous bass voice captivating the audience.

_“Les amours perdues ne se retrouvent plus, et les amants délaissés peuvent toujours chercher…”_

Ben was struck by another wicked idea. He was just _overflowing_ with an abundance of them lately when it came to Rey. Hell, if he devoted half this much brainpower to increasing First Order influence and profits, Snoke would have probably resigned and handed him the reins out of sheer awe by now.

Casually sipping from his drink, Ben played with the buttons on the app, matching the vibe’s tempo to the music as best as he could. It was a good tune for it, the piano accompaniment consisting of quick, lively jazz notes that soared into deeper, slower strains within the nocturnal cage of the singer’s voice that was all smoke and whiskey.

Rey squirmed, wine forgotten, Tarte Tatin forgotten, her lips parting, her eyes closing. If anyone happened to glance at their secluded corner table, she would look like she was swaying to the song. Losing herself in the melody. She made a show of adjusting the bodice of her dress, and only Ben could see that she was brushing her fingers over her nipples, that her palm was sliding softly down her stomach in a quiet hunger for more stimulation. Her legs tangled with his under the table, her smooth bare skin rubbing against his suit trousers.

He was so hard that he thought he was going to burst.

_“Mes amours perdues,”_ the singer crooned, _“hautent toujours mes nuits, et dans des bras inconnus je veux trouver l’oubli…”_

“What’s he saying, baby?” Ben rasped, more out of a desire to listen to her unravel rather than actual curiosity.

Rey furrowed her brow, trying to ground herself enough to translate for him. “‘My—my lost loves,’” she breathed, “‘still haunt my nights, and in—in—unknown arms—’ _oh—”_ Another fierce spasm tore through her as Ben increased the vibe’s pace—“‘I want to find—oblivion,’” she gasped. “Fuck, Ben, I’m—”

He grinned as he brought her over the edge, finally keying the vibe to the rhythm that she needed. Hard, fast, relentless. The last push that was required to drag her headlong into climax. _“On s’aimera toujours,”_ the pianist sang from far away, _“toujours, toujours,”_ and Rey’s eyes shot open, pupils blown wide, a soundless scream falling from her lips, her slim body dancing in the candlelight.

She slumped in her seat as the song came to an end. Ben summoned all of his willpower to get his dick to calm down, then called for Gaelan to bring the check. After signing for the meal—and providing a _generous_ tip—he dragged Rey out of the restaurant, his firm grip on her elbow holding her up as her legs shook like she’d forgotten how to walk.

He fell upon her even before the elevator doors had fully slid shut behind them in the lobby. As they climbed higher, he pressed her against the wall and kissed her like he had been starving for years, his hand encircling the graceful slope of her neck. She tasted like autumn and she melted in his arms, wrapping one leg around his waist so he could grind against her, eliciting soft and tattered little cries from her bruised lips every time his once more growing erection nudged the vibe deeper into her cunt.

They were still kissing when they finally— _finally—_ staggered into his penthouse, and it was his turn to barely be able to walk from how hard he was. Somehow he managed to claw at her dress, popping her breasts out of their fragile bodice, bowing his head to give each dusky nipple a sharp, hard suck as she yelped and clutched at his hair. Somehow he managed to haul her over to the wide, floor-to-ceiling glass windows that let in an unfettered view of the Parisian skyline and gently but insistently press the mound of his palm to the top of her spine, a wordless command to bend over.

Rey obeyed without hesitation, without a single complaint, because she was his good girl, because it sometimes seemed as though she’d made it her mission in life to drive him crazier than ever before. She braced her spread hands on the glass window, her ass in the air; she moaned as her nipples flattened against the cold, hard, transparent surface. Ben carelessly tossed her skirt up over her backside and just as carelessly tugged down her panties, and then he was unbuckling his belt, he was freeing his cock from his trousers, he was stroking himself in one trembling fist while his breath emerged in harsh, ragged pants as he devoured the sight of the pink vibrator peeking out from beneath the curve of her shapely, freckled rump.

Her inner thighs were _glistening,_ a testament to how wet she’d gotten, and seeing _that_ was all it took for his self-control to snap.

“Your pussy’s fucking _dripping,”_ he muttered. “Dirty little princess, got so turned on from this toy moving under your tiny skirt in a restaurant full of people.” He hunched over her, reaching around to plunge the drenched vibrator in and out of her soft, slick cunt in rapid thrusts while his erection dribbled precum all over her glorious ass. “Couldn’t even wait until we got back to the hotel room—had to get off under everyone’s noses—”

“I’m sorry, daddy,” Rey choked out even as she rocked her hips back against his groin. “I’ve been so bad, I’m really sorry, please don’t be angry with me—please be gentle—”

Ben took this for the cue that it was. The indication as to how she wanted it, the kind of sex that she was aching for. He tangled the fingers of his free hand in her hair, pulling just enough to make her whimper.

“Gentle is for nice girls, Rey,” he snarled, almost in her ear. “Nice girls don’t suck their daddy’s cock before going down to dinner. Nice girls aren’t so hot for it that they soak through their panties and beg daddy to let them cum right there at the table.” He bit into the delicate skin of her neck and she moaned and rocked against the vibe as he chuckled into her skin. “You’re not a nice girl,” he continued darkly, “and what you deserve—” He eased the toy out of her and tossed it aside and the whine of protest that she initially gave soon tapered off, her entire body tensing in anticipation as she felt his cock poised at her entrance—“is to get fucked _hard.”_

With that, he drove into her in one swift thrust, his hips snapping against her ass.

She _screamed._

It nearly threw him for a loop. She’d never actually screamed during sex before. His surprise quickly wore off and he pounded into her, utterly fascinated, wishing for nothing more in this world but to draw out that sound again and again.

He succeeded. _Repeatedly._ The entire evening had revved her up even more than he’d realized. She was gushing all over his shaft, all over the floor, and yet her cunt was still the tightest, most incredible thing, clamping around him like she never wanted him to leave. She screamed every time he slammed into her all the way to the hilt and she gasped every time the force of his thrusts reverberated through her body, rubbing her sensitive nipples all over the glass.

The Grand Oradin was the tallest building around for miles; there was little chance of anyone seeing them. If somebody were to somehow manage the feat of looking into the penthouse through its glass panes, they’d see the CEO of First Order Global’s European branch fucking some pretty, leggy young thing senseless, still wearing his business suit for the most part while her tits hung out of her dainty peach dress and mashed against the window as she balanced precariously on rose gold stiletto heels.

The sense of power—of complete and utter control—that Ben had felt earlier while watching Rey gag on his cock in the mirror came rushing back to him in full force. It was exacerbated by the panoramic view of France’s much beloved, much maligned, most _enduring_ capital glittering below their feet underneath the October moon. Within this spate of frantic, heady moments amidst the trappings of luxury, it was so easy to believe that the city was being handed to him and Rey on a silver platter.

City of empires. City of revolutions.

_Our city,_ the part of him that was still capable of stringing thoughts together firmly insisted.

Ben gritted his teeth and ramped up the pace, determined to get Rey to cum again, determined to make her own the city with him. She was sobbing, was delirious, her quivering thighs threatening to give way at any moment. She was pleading with him in that breathy, high-pitched tone that was always his weakness. _“Harder,_ daddy, yes, just like that, please—fuck your little girl, fill me up, _je t’appartiens—”_ He dug his fingers into her hips and plowed into her so roughly that it knocked the air out of her lungs, so deeply and so fast that soon she couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything more but squeak and maintain a shaky balance and _take it._

And when she careened into her second orgasm of the night, he followed not long after, emptying himself inside her with a quiet roar that felt like it had been torn from his soul.

🎀💎🎀

She was… dazed, in the aftermath. Nearly insensate. Although his limbs felt like they had been turned into jelly, he took care of her, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her to the bed while she clung limply to his neck. He laid her out on the mattress and removed her strappy shoes and her rumpled dress, then disappeared into the bathroom to run warm water over a washcloth. When he returned to her he spent the next few minutes wiping his spend from her body and pressing soothing kisses to all the bruises that he’d left while she made nonsensical sounds of contentment. Drowsiness settled over him in a thick fog and he had only enough presence of mind left to shuck off his own clothes before he crawled into bed beside her, gallantly offering her his bicep as a pillow despite the fact that there was a veritable mountain of _actual_ pillows all around them.

She didn’t hesitate to snuggle into his side. “Sometimes they frighten me, all these things that you make me feel,” he heard her tell him through a yawn, but sleep claimed him before he could even think of how to respond.

It wasn’t until several hours later—when Ben opened his eyes to the cold light of morning filtering into the penthouse, Rey sprawled on top of his chest and snoring as he held her close—that it hit him that she’d spent the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Star Wars References**
> 
> [Gaelan](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gaelan). Sorry, dude.
> 
> [Shine Astara](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Shine_Astara).
> 
> **Other Stuff & Things**
> 
> [Day of the Dupes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dupes).
> 
> _Ça a l'air bon_ = "Sounds good."
> 
> _Je t'appartiens_ = "I belong to you." 🥺
> 
> The song that the musician adapted to piano during dinner is ["Les amours perdues" by Serge Gainsbourg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHlK_wLgaoI).


End file.
